One Green Blade

from Unrecounted
By W.G. Sebald

They say
that Napoleon
was colorblind

and blood for him
as green as grass

Translated by Michael Hamburger ~ Book

One Blank Snow

from Desert Places
By Robert Frost

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars—on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

One Pitiless Tuning

from Fruit-Gathering
By Rabindranath Tagore

the pain was great
when the strings were being tuned,
my Master

begin your music...
let me feel in beauty
what you had in your mind
through those pitiless days.

One Thoughtful Alien

from A Sick Child
By Randall Jarrell

...If I can think of it, it isn't what I want.
I want...I want a ship from some near star
To land in the yard, and beings to come out
And think to me: "So this is where you are!

Come." Except that they won't do,
I thought of them... And yet somewhere there must be
Something that's different from everything.
All that I've never thought of--think of me!

One Sunny Smile

A Poison Tree
By William Blake

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water'd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunnéd it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil'd the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree.