"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep."

The last stanza of Robert Frost's

" Stopping by woods on a snowy evening ". I credit this poem for getting me interested in poetry, I loved the beauty of its simplicity yet for me it expressed something so profound about life... for we all have miles to go before we sleep. (When I first read it, I nearly cried.)

Many.

Good writing becomes "great" in my eyes when some transcendent line grips me, and I am incapable of reading further until I have paused to cherish it. At 21 when I first read the last line of "The Dead" by James Joyce, I started keeping a journal just because I needed to record how I felt. Poetry's condensed, crafted lines have had such an effect on me even more frequently than prose.

I recognized the experience in a Billy Collins poem. Beautiful though it is, I don't know that this piece "stopped my heart," but it gave me the words I have recalled since whenever something has.

Old Man Eating Alone in a Chinese Restaurant

I am glad I resisted the temptation,

if it was a temptation when I was young,

to write a poem about an old man

eating alone at a corner table in a Chinese restaurant.

I would have gotten it all wrong

thinking: the poor bastard, not a friend in the world

and with only book for a companion.

He'll probably pay for the bill out of a change purse.

So glad I waited all these decades

to record how hot and sour the hot and sour

soup is here at Chang's this afternoon

and how cold the Chinese beer in a frosted glass.

And my book––José Saramago's Blindness

as it turns out––is so absorbing that I look up

from its escalating horrors only

when I am stunned by one of his gleaming sentences.

And I should mention the light

that falls through the big windows this time of day

italicizing everything it touches––

the plates and teapots, the immaculate tablecloths,

as well as the soft brown hair of the waitress

in the white blouse and short black skirt,

the one who is smiling now as she bears a cup of rice

and shredded beef with garlic to my favorite table in the corner.

The gleaming sentences that stun me, that impel me to look up from my absorption, stop my heart.

A poem is a gesture toward home.

It makes dark demands I call my own.

Memory makes demands darker than my own:

My last love drove a burgundy car.

My first love drove a burgundy car.

He was fast and awful, tall as my father.

Steadfast and awful, my tall father

Hit hard as a hailstorm. He'd leave marks.

Light rain hits easy but leaves its own mark

Like the sound of a mother weeping again.

Like the sound of my mother weeping again,

No sound beating ends where it began.

None of the beaten end up how we began.

A poem is a gesture toward home.

I have posted this before, long ago, but I doubt many remember it. Am quoting from memory, so it might have a tiny miss here or there:

Warm summer sun,

Shine brightly here.

Warm southern winds

Blow softly here.

Green sod above,

Lie light, lie light.

Good night, dear heart,

Good night, good night.

Mark Twain wrote it while grieving for his first-born daughter. It is short and simple, but the more times you read it while considering that, the more telling it becomes... and the longer forever feels.

I have a very specific poem that comes to mind whenever people ask that question. The first poem that ever stopped my heart was Caged Bird by Maya Angelou (we had to read it back in middle school, and I couldn't help loving it). Though its a simple write, this poem is what kickstarted my love for reading and writing poetry.

"A free bird leaps

on the back of the wind   

and floats downstream   

till the current ends

and dips his wing

in the orange sun rays

and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks

down his narrow cage

can seldom see through

his bars of rage

his wings are clipped and   

his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings   

with a fearful trill   

of things unknown   

but longed for still   

and his tune is heard   

on the distant hill   

for the caged bird   

sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze

and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn

and he names the sky his own

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams   

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream   

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied   

so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings   

with a fearful trill   

of things unknown   

but longed for still   

and his tune is heard   

on the distant hill   

for the caged bird   

sings of freedom."

Inside this new love, die.

Your way begins on the other side.

Become the sky.

Take an axe to the prison wall.

Escape.

Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.

Do it now.

You are covered with thick cloud.

Slide out the side. Die,

and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign

that you have died.

Your old life was a frantic running

from silence.

The speechless full moon

comes out now.

#Rumi

Because I could not stop for Death--

He kindly stopped for me--

The carriage held but just ourselves--

And Immortality.

We slowly drove -- he knew no haste

And I had put away

My labor and my leisure too,

For his civility--

We passed the school where children played,

At Recess -- in the Ring--

We passed the fields of Grazing Grain--

We passed the setting sun.

Or rather -- He passes Us--

The Dews drew quivering and chill--

For only Gossamer, my Gown--

My Tippet -- only Tulle--

We paused before a House that seemed

A swelling of the ground--

The roof was scarcely visible--

The Cornice -- in the ground--

Since then -- ’tis centuries -- and yet

Feels shorter than the day

I first surmised the horses’ heads

Were toward Eternity--

---- I had this poem in my school 8th grade. I still could not forget how much I cherished by my teacher’s explanation to such an adorable poem.The inevitability of death in lovely lines. Personified Death as a carrigae and a ride to the neighourhood heading to afterlife. I wish everyone has a recall of past memories or a similar ride to afterlife.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I don't quite know what exactly about this poem resonated so much with me, but it just seems to echo in the recesses of my soul.

I read this for the first time almost immediately after the insurrection on the Capitol. I couldn't help but draw parallels between this poem, written in 1919, and our 2021 society.

I hope you enjoy this poem as much as I do, regardless of political undertones.

Dylan Thomas grew up skipping school to go streaking down his very civilized and upper-class neighborhood, and in truth he probably never really did grow up at all in his entire life, dying eventually after a long series of whiskey-fueled joke-telling and late night drunken pranks at the expense of anybody, his enemies included with his best of friends, his editors and publishers, even himself.

He died young, alcohol related. He died sweating and laughing. His most famous line and poem is, "Do not go gently into that good night," nor did he.

The one poem that always struck me like verses of prophets hand-delivered directly from God, is "Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines."

Even in darkness, he celebrates the rage and blood and sweat of mankind to endure. Not enough time in the day for sadness. It is as though our bones are kindling and our spirit a fantastic match stick, making the candle of our eyes glow with glorious fire and light across the shadows of the horizon.

Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines

By Dylan Thomas

Light breaks where no sun shines;

Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart

Push in their tides;

And, broken ghosts with glowworms in their heads,

The things of light

File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

A candle in the thighs

Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;

Where no seed stirs,

The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,

Bright as a fig;

Where no wax is, the candle shows it's hairs.

Dawn breaks behind the eyes;

From poles of skull and toe the windy blood

Slides like a sea;

Spout to the rod

Divining in a smile the oil of tears.

Night in the sockets rounds,

Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;

Day lights the bone;

Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin

The winter's robes;

The film of spring is hanging from the lids.

Light breaks on secret lots,

On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;

When logics die,

The secret of the soil grows through the eye,

And blood jumps in the sun;

Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

****

This one is pretty well-known, but still my favourite. The first time I read it, I almost cried.