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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jane Kenyon
Jane Kenyon
Jane Kenyon was born on May 23, 1947, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and grew...
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FURTHER READING
Poems About Home
9773 Comanche Ave.
by David Trinidad
Notebook of a Return to the Native Land [excerpt]
by Aimé Césaire
Birthplace
by Michael Cirelli
Daily
by Naomi Shihab Nye
Dusting
by Marilyn Nelson
Fishing on the Susquehanna in July
by Billy Collins
He Foretells His Passing
by F. D. Reeve
Home is so Sad
by Philip Larkin
My House, I Say
by Robert Louis Stevenson
On the Disadvantages of Central Heating
by Amy Clampitt
Proclamation
by Stuart Dischell
Psalm of Home Redux
by David Lee
Steppingstone
by Andrew Hudgins
Sysiphusina
by Shira Dentz
Te Deum
by Charles Reznikoff
The Afternoon Sun
by C. P. Cavafy
The Bedroom
by Paula Bohince
The Cabbage
by Ruth Stone
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
by W. B. Yeats
This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams
Untitled [I grew up in North Adams]
by Brenda Iijima
Wonder Cabinet
by Tina Chang
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Otherwise

 
by Jane Kenyon

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.






Jane Kenyon, "Otherwise," from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2005 by the Estate of Jane Kenyon. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Graywolf Press, graywolfpress.org.
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