Hands Up to the Sky


If hands could free you, heart by Philip Larkin

If hands could free you, heart,
Where would you fly ?
Far, beyond every part
Of earth this running sky
Makes desolate ? Would you cross
City and hill and sea,
If hands could set you free ?

I would not lift the latch ;
For I could run
Through fields, pit-valleys, catch
All beauty under the sun –
Still end in loss :
I should find no bent arm, no bed
To rest my head

 


I felt my life with both my hands by Emily Dickinson

I felt my life with both my hands
To see if it was there –
I held my spirit to the Glass,
To prove it possibler –

I turned my Being round and round
And paused at every pound
To ask the Owner’s name –
For doubt, that I should know the sound –

I judged my features – jarred my hair –
I pushed my dimples by, and waited –
If they – twinkled back –
Conviction might, of me –

I told myself, “Take Courage, Friend –
That – was a former time –
But we might learn to like the Heaven,
As well as our Old Home” !


The Old Mountains by Edwin Curran

The old mountains are tall, silent men
Standing with folded arms, looking over the world,
Lonesome and lofty in their manner.

They have seen empires come and go,
Civilizations rise and fall,
Stars break on their breasts.

They are full of history like great books,
And are merely the stone monuments that the kindly God
Built for the human race, to mark its grave tomorrow.