Bonaro Wilkinson Overstreet

Think of the innumerable poets who have slipped through time unknown to us.

Here are four poems by Bonaro Wilkinson Overstreet (October 30, 1902 – September 9, 1985), author, poet and psychologist.

Bonaro Overstreet wrote several volumes of poetry, and wrote such inspirational books as ''Courage for Crisis'' and ''How to Stay Alive All of Your Life.''

For Keeping

Lifting spadefuls of earth and turning them down
To crumple beneath their weight the weeds they had bred;
Cutting and raking the dark-packed clods of earth,
On a late fall afternoon we made a bed
For the winter-sleeping bulbs of hyacinths.
Overhead
Birds were blown across the sober sky
Like showers of leaves. Around our feet and shoulders
Leaves were blown by.

Now in the winter frost has taken the earth,
Nipping it deep,
Ridging the surface, hardening the bed
Where hyacinths sleep.
The birds have gone, and the leaves forget to blow….
But the feel of the bulbs in our hands and the smell of earth
We shall keep.

--Bonaro Wilkinson Overstreet

[poem from "Hands Laid Upon the Wind" by Bonaro W. Overstreet, W.W. Norton & Company (1955).