Smoke

By Philip Levine

Can you imagine the air filled with smoke?
It was. The city was vanishing before noon
or was it earlier than that? I can’t say because
the light came from nowhere and went nowhere.

This was years ago, before you were born, before
your parents met in a bus station downtown.
She’d come on Friday after work all the way
from Toledo, and he’d dressed in his only suit.

Back then we called this a date, some times
a blind date, though they’d written back and forth
for weeks. What actually took place is now lost.
It’s become part of the mythology of a family,

the stories told by children around the dinner table.
No, they aren’t dead, they’re just treated that way,
as objects turned one way and then another
to catch the light, the light overflowing with smoke.

Go back to the beginning, you insist. Why
is the air filled with smoke? Simple. We had work.
Work was something that thrived on fire, that without
fire couldn’t catch its breath or hang on for life.

We came out into the morning air, Bernie, Stash,
Williams, and I, it was late March, a new war
was starting up in Asia or closer to home,
one that meant to kill us, but for a moment

the air held still in the gray poplars and elms
undoing their branches. I understood the moon
for the very first time, why it came and went, why
it wasn’t there that day to greet the four of us.

Before the bus came a small black bird settled
on the curb, fearless or hurt, and turned its beak up
as though questioning the day. “A baby crow,”
someone said. Your father knelt down on the wet cement,

his lunchbox balanced on one knee and stared quietly
for a long time. “A grackle far from home,” he said.
One of the four of us mentioned tenderness,
a word I wasn’t used to, so it wasn’t me.

The bus must have arrived. I’m not there today.
The windows were soiled. We swayed this way and that
over the railroad tracks, across Woodward Avenue,
heading west, just like the sun, hidden in smoke.

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Famous-Poems-quiz

Famous Poems: 20 Multiple-Choice Questions

1 / 20

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep, 

But I have promises to keep, 

And miles to go before I sleep, 

And miles to go before I sleep." 

 

- Who is the author of this poem?

2 / 20

"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons." 

 

- What is the title of this poem?

3 / 20

"Ozymandias" is a famous poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley. What is the next line of this poem after "I met a traveller from an antique land"?

4 / 20

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate:"

- What is the next line of this sonnet?

5 / 20

"Because I could not be with you, I will write across the page the words I was too afraid to speak, I was too afraid to stay, I was too afraid to leave."

 

- What is the title of this poem?

6 / 20

"The Waste Land" is a famous poem by T.S. Eliot. What is the next line of this poem after "April is the cruellest month"?

7 / 20

"We real cool. We left school. We lurk late."

- What is the next line of this poem by Gwendolyn Brooks?

8 / 20

"O Captain! My Captain! 

our fearful trip is done, 

The ship has weathered every rack, 

the prize we sought is won."

 

 - Who is the author of this poem?

9 / 20

"Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul."

 - What is the title of this poem?

10 / 20

"Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there; I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints on snow."

 

- What is the title of this poem?

11 / 20

"Two roads diverged in a wood, 

and I - I took the one less travelled by, 

And that has made all the difference." 

 

- Who is the author of this poem?

12 / 20

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" is a famous sonnet by William Shakespeare. What is the next line of this poem after "Thou art more lovely and more temperate:"?

13 / 20

"Still I Rise" is a famous poem by Maya Angelou. What is the next line of this poem after "You may shoot me with your words"?

14 / 20

"And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep."

 

 - What is the title of this poem?

15 / 20

"For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, 

They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude." 

 

- Who is the author of this poem?

16 / 20

"A Contribution to Statistics" is a famous poem by Wislawa Szymborska. What is the next line of this poem after "Out of a hundred people"?

17 / 20

"I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother."

- What is the next line of this poem by Langston Hughes?

18 / 20

"Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night;

 What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"

 

 - Who is the author of this poem?

19 / 20

"i carry your heart with me" is a famous poem by E.E. Cummings. What is the next line of this poem after "i carry your heart with me(i carry it in"?

20 / 20

"Because I could not stop for Death - He kindly stopped for me -"

- What is the next line of this poem?

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Forms-Of-Poetry-Quiz

Forms Of Poetry: 20 Multiple-Choice Questions

1 / 20

What is the name of the poetic form in which each line contains the same number of syllables?

2 / 20

Which of the following poetic forms consists of a series of six-line stanzas, with a specific rhyme scheme and the repetition of certain end words throughout the poem?

3 / 20

Which of the following poetic forms is characterized by alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with a rhyme scheme of A-B-A-B?

4 / 20

Which of the following poetic forms is characterized by a poem that tells a story through a series of quatrains, with a rhyme scheme of ABAB?

5 / 20

What is the name of the poetic form in which a single poem is created by combining lines from multiple different poems, typically by different authors?

6 / 20

What is the name of the poetic form that originated in ancient Arabic poetry, consisting of rhyming couplets and a refrain, typically used to express love or melancholy?

7 / 20

Which of the following poetic forms originated in ancient Greece and typically consists of a long narrative poem about heroic deeds?

8 / 20

Which of the following poetic forms is characterized by six sestets and a final tercet, with a complex pattern of repeating end words?

9 / 20

What is the name of the poetic form in which two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter are followed by a rhyming line of iambic tetrameter?

10 / 20

What is the name of the poetic form consisting of a series of unrhymed tercets followed by a quatrain, with the same end words used throughout the poem in a specific pattern?

11 / 20

Which of the following is NOT a form of Japanese poetry?

12 / 20

Which of the following poetic forms is characterized by a five-line stanza with a syllable count of 2-4-6-8-2, and typically contains a humorous or witty twist at the end?

13 / 20

What is the name of the poetic form in which each line or stanza repeats the same sequence of words, but in reverse order?

14 / 20

What is the name of the poetic form consisting of four-line stanzas, with a rhyme scheme of ABAB, typically used to express love or praise?

15 / 20

Which of the following poetic forms is characterized by a series of eight-line stanzas, with a rhyme scheme of A-B-A-B-B-C-B-C?

16 / 20

Which of the following poetic forms is characterized by three-line stanzas, with a syllable count of 5-7-5 and a seasonal reference?

17 / 20

Which of the following poetic forms is characterized by a poem with three stanzas of three lines each, followed by a single four-line stanza, with a specific rhyme scheme and syllable count?

18 / 20

What is the name of the poetic form in which the first letter of each line spells out a word or phrase?

19 / 20

Which of the following poetic forms originated in Italy?

20 / 20

Which of the following poetic forms is characterized by three stanzas of three lines each and a final quatrain?

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