At Last The Secret Is Out - W.H. Auden

At last the secret is out, as it always must come in the end,
The delicious story is ripe to tell to the intimate friend;
Over the tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire;
Still waters run deep, my dear, there's never smoke without fire.

Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links,
Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks,
Under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh
There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.

For the clear voice suddenly singing, high up in the convent wall,
The scent of the elder bushes, the sporting prints in the hall,
The croquet matches in summer, the handshake, the cough, the kiss,
There is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this.

High Water Mark - David Shumate

It's hard to believe, but at one point the water rose to this level. No one had seen anything like it. People on rooftops. Cows and coffins floating through the streets. Prisoners carrying invalids from their rooms. The barkeeper consoling the preacher. A coon hound who showed up a month later forty miles downstream. And all that mud it left behind. You never forget times like those. They become part of who you are. You describe them to your grandchildren. But they think it's just another tale in which animals talk and people live forever. I know it's not the kind of thing you ought to say... But I wouldn't mind seeing another good flood before I die. It's been dry for decades. Next time I think I'll just let go and drift downstream and see where I end up.

The Meaning of Life - Nancy Fitzgerald

There is a moment just before
a dog vomits when its stomach
heaves dry, pumping what's deep
inside the belly to the mouth.
If you are fast you can grab
her by the collar and shove her
out the door, avoid the slimy bile,
hunks of half chewed food
from landing on the floor.
You must be quick, decisive,
controlled, and if you miss
the cue and the dog erupts
en route, you must forgive
her quickly and give yourself
to scrubbing up the mess.

Most of what I have learned
in life leads back to this.

100,000 Fireflies - Stephen Merritt (of The Magnetic Fields)

I have a mandolin
I play it all night long
It makes me want to kill myself
I also have a Dobro
Made in some mountain range
Sounds like a mountain range in love
But when I turn up the tone
On my electric guitar...

I'm afraid of the dark without you close to me

I went out to the forest and caught
100,000 fireflies
As they ricochet 'round the room
They remind me of your starry eyes
Someone else's might
Not have made me so sad
But this is the worst night I ever had

'Cause I'm afraid of the dark without you close to me
Always was

You won't be happy with me
But give me one more chance
You won't be happy anyway

Why do we still live here
In this repulsive town?
All our friends are in New York

Why do we keep shrieking
When we mean soft things?
We should be whispering all the time

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

But by then her acceptance of her fate was so deep that she was not even upset by the certainty that all possibility of rectification were closed to her.

-One Hundred Years Of Solitude

If She Could Have Her Love For You Only One Day A Year - Tina Kelley

If life bloomed once a year, if we sat in dim rooms the rest of the days, resting,
she would come here for that noontime, to see children waist high,
their attentions wandering like wall eyes, making noises that sound to a single person
like severe distress or pain, but mean delight. She would hear a father shouting
"Olivia! Wait for Maggie!" whatever good that does. Sun off the lake
makes bright veins on the underside of a Japanese red pine,
lightens the bark like a buttercup held under it. She would see the limp-legged wasp,
the bumblebee with jodhpurs of pollen, straddling the sweet stigma of the purple hosta.
She would see the shadows of the waterbug's feet, circled by sharp light.

If she could have her love for this garden only one day a year
she would take souvenirs. Everyone does — a snapshot, a sketch, a stone, a sentence,
two nuggets of food for the koi, moist, in the pocket of size 6x shorts. The honeybees
hump their rumps over their work, walking on the globe of a cloverhead.
She sees that the waterbugs move so seldom, is each polished slide an annual event?
She would lie down and read and walk away stronger,
with the memory of the comfort of the sun on the soles of her bare feet.
Bullfrog, dragonfly, buttercup, snow lantern, vine maple, honeybee,
cloverhead, waterbug, moonlight: She wants this by moonlight.

Bees - Jane Hirshfield

In every instant, two gates.
One opens to fragrant paradise, one to hell.
Mostly we go through neither.

Mostly we nod to our neighbor,
lean down to pick up the paper,
go back into the house.

But the faint cries—ecstasy? horror?
Or did you think it the sound
of distant bees,
making only the thick honey of this good life?