"The Maldive Shark" by Herman Melville

"The Gulf Stream" -- Winslow Homer -- 1899

About the Shark, phlegmatical one,

Pale sot of the Maldive sea,

The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,

How alert in attendance be.

From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw

They have nothing of harm to dread,

But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank

Or before his Gorgonian head:

Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth

In white triple tiers of glittering gates,

And there find a haven when peril’s abroad,

An asylum in jaws of the Fates!

They are friends; and friendly they guide him to prey,

Yet never partake of the treat—

Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull,

Pale ravener of horrible meat.

"A Lazy Day" by Paul Laurence Dunbar

"The End of the Day, Adirondacks" Winslow Homer, 1890

The trees bend down along the stream,

Where anchored swings my tiny boat.

The day is one to drowse and dream

And list the thrush’s throttling note.

When music from his bosom bleeds 

Among the river’s rustling reeds.

No ripple stirs the placid pool,

When my adventurous line is cast, 

A truce to sport, while clear and cool,

The mirrored clouds slide softly past.

The sky gives back a blue divine, 

And all the world’s wide wealth is mine.

A pickerel leaps, a bow of light,

The minnows shine from side to side. 

The first faint breeze comes up the tide—

I pause with half uplifted oar,

While night drifts down to claim the shore.

1904

"VII" by Wendell Berry

"The Veteran in a New Field" by Winslow Homer

What a wonder I was

when I was young, as I learn

by the stern privilege

of being old: how regardlessly

I stepped the rough pathways

of the hillside woods,

treaded hardly thinking

the tumbled stairways

of the steep streams, and worked

unaching hard days

thoughtful only of the work,

the passing light, the heat, the cool

water I gladly drank.

"VII." by Wendell Berry from A Small Porch. © Counterpoint, 2016.

"The Woodcutter Changes His Mind" by David Budbill

The Woodcutter, Winslow Homer, 1891

When I was young, I cut the bigger, older trees for firewood, the ones

with heart rot, dead and broken branches, the crippled and deformed

ones, because, I reasoned, they were going to fall soon anyway, and

therefore, I should give the younger trees more light and room to grow.

Now I’m older and I cut the younger, strong and sturdy, solid

and beautiful trees, and I let the older ones have a few more years

of light and water and leaf in the forest they have known so long.

Soon enough they will be prostrate on the ground.

"The Woodcutter Changes His Mind" by David Budbill from While We've Still Got Feet. © Copper Canyon Press, 2005.

"Evening" by Raymond Carver

A Good One, Winslow Homer, watercolor, 1889

I fished alone that languid autumn evening.

Fished as darkness kept coming on.

Experiencing exceptional loss and then

exceptional joy when I brought a silver salmon

to the boat, and dipped a net under the fish.

Secret heart! When I looked into the moving water

and up at the dark outline of the mountains

behind the town, nothing hinted then

I would suffer so this longing

to be back once more, before I die.

Far from everything, and far from myself.

"Evening" by Raymond Carver from Ultramarine. © Vintage Books, 1986.