Your Daily Poem

This site exists for one purpose only: to help dispel the ugly and absolutely untrue myth that poetry is boring. Granted, a lot of poetry is boring, but you won't find it here. At Your Daily Poem, you'll find poetry that is touching, funny, provocative, inspiring, uplifting, and surprising. It may punch you in the gut, it may bring tears to your eyes, it may make you laugh out loud, but it most assuredly will not bore you! Visit our home page every day to see a different poem.

Poetry on YDP—by poets living and long dead, famous to completely unknown--is specially selected for accessibility and appeal. Thanks so much for visiting—and remember: a poem a day keeps the doldrums away!

El Capitan by Full Moon
by
Kathe L. Palka

During the day you'll see rock climbers, and at night you'll see their
flashlights strung across the face like erratic Christmas tree lights
— Frommer's guide to Yosemite National Park

Touring the valley after dark from an open tram car, we view
Half Dome, North Dome, Clouds Rest, Royal Arches, Sentinel Rock—
all ghost pale by moonlight. The thready glint of Bridalveil Fall
mists to the valley floor to join the calm Merced of summer.
In the shadow of El Capitan we pause while our young ranger shares
his climber's love of Yosemite's fine granite, the strength of its sheer faces.
He has scaled this tower of rock more times than he now cares to count
(or tell his mother)—each climb a journey lasting days,
perhaps a week or more spent fastened to a monolith the height
of three Empire State Buildings. Shocked murmurs confess
both awe and curiosity. How many are there tonight?
With his flashlight, he calls his brethren from their rest
and the pilgrims answer, a dozen or more, in kind.
Like wise men, we peer upward, drawn to newfound stars
and find ourselves at worship in their cathedral, each light
an act of praise amid the grandeur.

From Faith to See and Other Poems (Finishing Line Press 2007).
This poem first appeared in The Bucks County Writer.
Used here with the author's permission.

Kathe L. Palka lives in Hunterdon County, New Jersey and writes in both Japanese forms and free verse. Her short tanka collection, As the Years Pass, won an eChapbook Award from Snapshot Press in 2011. In 2015, Red Moon Press published A Path of Desire, a book of tan renga written by Kathe and poet Peter Newton. Two poems from her long form collection, Miracle of the Wine (Grayson Books, 2012), were featured on The Writer’s Almanac. Kathe is a member of the Haiku Poets of the Garden State and has been involved in the presentation of haiku for their yearly April haiku sign installation at the New Jersey Botanical Garden in Ringwood, New Jersey since its inception in 2018. She has co-edited the online micro poetry journal tinywords.com together with Peter Newton since 2012. Kathe is currently at work on a manuscript in Japanese forms. Learn more about her at her Haiku Foundation web page.

Katrina:
Bridalveil Fall is poetic in its own right but the inclusion of three Empire State Buildings helps an onlooker gain perspective of this majesty. Wow!
Posted 07/31/2011 08:14 AM

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