The Sunday Poem

NOB HILL--Ted Kooser, editor of this column, focuses on what he calls "American Life." The poets he features are from all over the U.S. Their poems tend to be about common events and metaphorical insights that speak to almost everybody. He does not put forward a political point of view. These poems are about all of us. I say this not in reference to any one poet, but because the poems he selects tend to be more reflective than provocative. Therefore the poems might require more of a gentle look within oneself, rather than a head-nod of agreement.

Today's poet also has written an interesting essay entitled, "Letter from Naomi Shihab Nye, Arab-American Poet: To Any Would-Be Terrorists."

American Life in Poetry: Column 030

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Naomi Shihab Nye lives in San Antonio, Texas. Here she perfectly captures a moment in childhood that nearly all of us may remember: being too small for the games the big kids were playing, and fastening tightly upon some little thing of our own.


Boy and Egg

Every few minutes, he wants
to march the trail of flattened rye grass
back to the house of muttering
hens. He too could make
a bed in hay. Yesterday the egg so fresh
it felt hot in his hand and he pressed it
to his ear while the other children
laughed and ran with a ball, leaving him,
so little yet, too forgetful in games,
ready to cry if the ball brushed him,
riveted to the secret of birds
caught up inside his fist,
not ready to give it over
to the refrigerator
or the rest of the day.

Reprinted from “Fuel,” published by BOA Editions by permission of the author. Copyright © 1998 by Naomi Shihab Nye, whose most recent book is “A Maze Me” Harper Collins/Greenwillow, 2004. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.