**THE THINGS WE KEEP** 

**The Almanac of Last Things** 

From the almanac of last things 

I choose the spider lily 

for the grace of its brief 

blossom, though I myself 

fear brevity, but I choose 

The Song of Songs 

because the flesh 

of those pomegranates 

has survived 

all the frost of dogma.

I choose January with its chill 

lessons of patience and despair—and 

August, too sun-struck for lessons. 

I choose a thimbleful of red wine 

to make my heart race, 

then another to help me 

sleep. From the almanac 

of last things I choose you, 

as I have done before.

And I choose evening 

because the light clinging 

to the window 

is at its most reflective 

just as it is ready 

to go out. 

*by Linda Pastan*

—

**THE ARMFUL** 

*by Robert Frost* 

For every parcel I stoop down to seize 

I lose some other off my arms and knees, 

And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns— 

Extremes too hard to comprehend at once, 

Yet nothing I should care to leave behind. 

With all I have to hold with, I will do my best 

To keep their building balanced at my breast. 

I crouch down to prevent them as they fall; 

Then sit down in the middle of them all. 

I had to drop the armful in the road. 

And try to stack them in a better load.

—

**DOODLES** 

*by Al Zolynas* 

We find them around 

the leavings of telephone 

conversations clinging 

to addresses, appointments; 

around the notes 

of committee members, 

judges; in the margins 

of grocery lists and aborted 

poems. They are always 

on the edges, sliding 

away like vitreous floaters 

when we try to see 

them clearly. For all their ubiquity, 

they are humble and 

basic: flowers, stars, stick-men, 

uncomplicated by the rules of 

perspective and modeling. 

They leave the loud shout 

of the third dimension to Art. 

They are content to whisper.

—