Poems that I love

6/28/2026 56th San Francisco Pride Ken Ireland I love a parade. I love a marching band. I particularly love the village bandstand with friends singing and dancing. I love inviting people who are hungry for love and affection into the circle. I love seeing people being exuberant. Anyone, Everyone. I love the chance to sing off-key without critics circling. I love being supported and loved for who I am Without pretending to be someone who ain’t me. I love a chance to feel free enough to express a few things hidden that need to be said. I don’t mind if a few friends get a bit out there and sloppy. The ring of tolerance has expanded a bit. I still feel safe. I know I can trust you. I know that there will be more than a few apologies tomorrow. I’ve been there. I am open enough to let a few things slide. No grudges. No recriminations. I checked all the boxes, but something still feels off. Last year, I had trouble paying the bill. This year, to help and even expand a bit, I said yes when you...

Carol Ann Duffy We came from our own country in a red room which fell through the fields, our mother singing our father’s name to the turn of the wheels. My brothers cried, one of them bawling, Home, Home, as the miles rushed back to the city, the street, the house, the vacant rooms where we didn’t live any more. I stared at the eyes of a blind toy, holding its paw. All childhood is an emigration. Some are slow, leaving you standing, resigned, up an avenue where no one you know stays. Others are sudden. Your accent wrong. Corners, which seem familiar, leading to unimagined pebble-dashed estates, big boys eating worms and shouting words you don’t understand. My parents’ anxiety stirred like a loose tooth in my head. I want our own country, I said. But then you forget, or don’t recall, or change, and, seeing your brother swallow a slug, feel only a skelf of shame. I remember my tongue shedding its skin like a snake, my voice in the classroom sounding just like the rest. Do I only think I...

Last winter The bears came down Below the snow line. They were hungry. Word got out that they were four, A she-bear with cubs. What went through these women’s minds when the bear lunged at their face. They also had a right to go about their business. I wonder. Astonished. I ask myself if I would be brave. One who lived is a friend of my cook’s wife. She was up at the well early To pump water for the day. She claimed to have put up a fight. The village was proud. The strong survival reflex of these mountains. The Tibetan woman on the kora was not so lucky. The Dalai Lama should have sent a representative to her cremation. Her holy work was his. The bears are back up in the mountains where they should be Now we just contend with rain and flooding. Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep  forth. The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their d...