Humanist Voices in Verse: “From the Porch in Summer”

This week’s poem is by Daniel Thomas Moran, TheHumanist.com poetry editor, retired dentist and Boston University Assistant Professor, former Poet Laureate of Suffolk County, New York and the author of seven collections of poetry. He lives in Webster, New Hampshire with his wife, Karen, where he has taken on the role of Unemployed Poet and Anecdotalist. His recently published collection of poems, A Shed for Wood, has been lauded for its “profound and intelligible poetry” (author Peter Quinn) while Moran is described as “a distinctive American voice which deserves an attentive hearing” (Elizabeth Heywood, Acumen Literary Journal). His website is www.danielthomasmoran.net.


FROM THE PORCH IN SUMMER

That peace we seek,
is that peace we find.

The peace we make.

In the exhalations
of sky upon
leaf and limb.
In the ripest berry
on the tree, and
the most bitter.

In the journeys which
lead nowhere,  and
the ones which
find us home.

In the reassurance
of muted sun through
a thin gauze of cloud.

In the perfect and
uncountable nuances
of green.

In the silence
beyond speaking and our
surrender to mystery.

In knowing what we must,
what we can, and what
we can not.

—Daniel Thomas Moran