My Weather

Jane Hirshfield (2012)

Wakeful, sleepy, hungry, anxious,
restless, stunned, relieved.

Does a tree also?
A mountain?

A cup holds
sugar, flour, three large rabbit-breaths of air.

I hold these.

Cheerios

Billy Collins (2012)

One bright morning in a restaurant in Chicago
as I waited for my eggs and toast,
I opened the Tribune only to discover
that I was the same age as Cheerios.

Indeed, I was a few months older than Cheerios
for today, the newspaper announced,
was the seventieth birthday of Cheerios
whereas mine had occurred earlier in the year.

Already I could hear them whispering
behind my stooped and threadbare back,
Why that dude's older than Cheerios
the way they used to say

Why that's as old as the hills,
only the hills are much older than Cheerios
or any American breakfast cereal,
and more noble and enduring are the hills,

I surmised as a bar of sunlight illuminated my orange juice.

Neither Here Nor There

W.S. Merwin (2012)

An airport is nowhere
which is not something
generally noticed

yet some unnamed person in the past
deliberately planned it
to be there

and you have spent time there
again
and are spending time there again
for something you have done
which you do not entirely remember
like the souls of Purgatory

you sit there in the smell
of what passes for food
breathing what is called air
while the timepieces measure
their agreement

you believe in it
while you are there
because you are there
and sometimes you may even feel happy
to be that far on your way
to somewhere