National Poetry Month 2019

April is National Poetry Month, and it's never too late to enjoy some poetry. As usual, I'll link the wonderful Favorite Poem Project, although its summer institute has been dissolved, alas.

This year, I thought I'd feature a great poem I just discovered earlier this year:

The Rider
By Naomi Shihab Nye

A boy told me
if he roller-skated fast enough
his loneliness couldn’t catch up to him,
the best reason I ever heard
for trying to be a champion.
What I wonder tonight
pedaling hard down King William Street
is if it translates to bicycles.
A victory! To leave your loneliness
panting behind you on some street corner
while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,
pink petals that have never felt loneliness,
no matter how slowly they fell.

This is from Nye's 1998 collection, Fuel, if you want to read more of her work.

Feel free to link a favorite poem in the comments.