Lexi+S

by Maya Angelou
 * "Women Work**"

I've got the children to tend The clothes to mend The floor to mop The food to shop Then the chicken to fry The baby to dry I got company to feed The garden to weed I've got shirts to press The tots to dress The can to be cut I gotta clean up this hut Then see about the sick And the cotton to pick.

Shine on me, sunshine Rain on me, rain Fall softly, dewdrops And cool my brow again.

Storm, blow me from here With your fiercest wind Let me float across the sky 'Til I can rest again.

Fall gently, snowflakes Cover me with white Cold icy kisses and Let me rest tonight.

Sun, rain, curving sky Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone @Star shine, moon glow You're all that I can call my own.

@Maya Angelou's higher purpose

by Robert Frost
 * "Fire and Ice**"

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

by John Donne
 * "Loves Deity**"

I long to talk with some old lover's

ghost, Who died before the god of love was born. I cannot think that he, who then lov'd most, Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn. But since this god produc'd a destiny, And that vice-nature, custom, lets it be, I must love her, that loves not me.

Sure, they which made him god, meant not so much, Nor he in his young godhead practis'd it. But when an even flame two hearts did touch, His office was indulgently to fit Actives to passives. Correspondency Only his subject was; it cannot be Love, till I love her, that loves me.

But every modern god will now extend His vast prerogative as far as Jove. To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend, All is the purlieu of the god of love. O! were we waken'd by this tyranny To ungod this child again, it could not be I should love her, who loves not me.

Rebel and atheist too, why murmur I, As though I felt the worst that love could do? Love might make me leave loving, or might try A deeper plague, to make her love me too; Which, since she loves before, I'am loth to see. Falsehood is worse than hate; and that must be, If she whom I love, should love me

by Seamus Heaney
 * "Digging**"

Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up twenty years away Stooping in rhythm through potato drills Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft Against the inside knee was levered firmly. He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep To scatter new potatoes that we picked Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade, Just like his old man.

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day Than any other man on Toner’s bog. Once I carried him milk in a bottle Corked sloppily with papers. He straightened up To drink it, then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods Over his shoulder, digging down and down For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge @Through living roots awaken in my head. But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I'll dig with it.

by Gwendolyn Brooks
 * "We real cool**"

We real cool. We Left school. We

Lurk late. We Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We Die soon.

@Binding topic Paragraphs