Welcome to Your Daily Poem!

This site exists for one purpose only: to help dispel the ugly myth that poetry is boring. Granted, some poetry is boring, but you won't find it here. What you will find on Your Daily Poem is poetry that is touching, funny, provocative, inspiring, and sometimes surprising. It may punch you in the gut, it may bring tears to your eyes, it may make you laugh out loud, but it will most assuredly not bore you. Poetry featured here--by poets living and long dead, famous to completely unknown--is selected especially for accessibility and appeal. If you enjoy it, please pass it along; there's a "Share" button below to make that easy.

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What the Light Would Say
by
Dale Ritterbusch

In the language of the Dakota
um pa o wasta we
means beautiful daybreak woman.
I imagine a Dakota warrior
returning from the hunt
to a woman lying in the light
of early morning, and the warrior
slips in next to her, touches her face
and says the words
that tighten her arms around him.
When I touch your face
in the half-light of early morning
I have nothing to bring you—
no talisman or wild boar, no stories,
nothing but the fall of my hand
upon your shoulders brushing away
stray threads of raven hair
making way for a small kiss
in the breath of a light breeze.
And my breath speaks in a language
I no longer understand,
where any word I might say
in the most inarticulate resonance
of a touch breaks and burns
like a covey of birds rising to the sun,
rising until their feathers become light
and every wingbeat sings
as I reach my arms around you
O beautiful daybreak woman.

From Far From the Temple of Heaven (Black Moss Press, 2005)
Used with the author's permission.

Dale Ritterbusch writes poems about baseball and other sports. Reflective of his strange psychology, he is a fan of both the Vikings and the Packers. He is the author of Lessons Learned, a collection of poems on the Vietnam War and its aftermath, and Far From the Temple of Heaven. He is Professor of Languages and Literatures at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and served as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the United States Air Force Academy in 2004-05.

Dale also has poems in these books:

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