At dawn the panther of the heavens peers over the edge of the world.
She hears the stars gossip with the sun, sees the moon washing her lean
darkness with water electrified by prayers. All over the world there are those . . .
When I have baked white cakes
And grated green almonds to spread upon them;
When I have picked the green crowns from the strawberries . . .
Such a book must contain—
it always does!—a disclaimer.
I make no such. For here . . .
Piping down the valleys wild
Piping songs of pleasant glee
On a cloud I saw a child. . . .
Inventing a horse is not easy.
One must not only think of the horse.
One must dig fence posts around him.
One must include a place where horses like to live; . . .
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be . . .
Come when the nights are bright with stars
Or come when the moon is mellow;
Come when the sun his golden bars . . .
“Is my team ploughing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle . . .
In Los Angeles I grew up watching The Three Stooges,
The Little Rascals, Speed Racer, and the Godzilla movies,
. . .
In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
“Whose heart-strings are a lute”;
None sing so wildly well . . .
"I always thought I could never understand poetry and was horrible at reciting it until I got the chance to learn with Poetry Out Loud."
Jenifer Henriquez 
