OK, here's the promised poem for today

29 Springs

for Bill

So we decided to marry,

put our clothes in the same closet,

eat off the same dishes, sleep

night after night together, care

about each other’s memories

and children. It was hard to do,

after the years we’d both grown dull

scabs over our hearts. After years

thinking our parents were wrong

about marriage, after years of practice

moving one foot at a time into sadness.

But it was spring and sap flowed again

in each of us like some maple

had lifted its eyes, suddenly seeing sun.

So we decided to marry. This morning,

brushing our teeth at the same sink,

we give thanks for our 29 springs.

Poets rejoice

It is a lovely grey morning on the coast of Maine as I drink my tea and get ready for a day of planting in the garden. Finally the ground is prepped and ready for the rest of my seedlings which have been waiting in the greenhouse. I am always inspired by planting. It seems to me a connection to what I do with words. That is why I love going out to the yard to write or to the greenhouse to write. I have a tall stool there and use the potting bench as a desk. If it rains, so much the better. The sound of it on the glass roof of the g.h. is so thrilling.

On a reading note, here are a few things I have been reading:

1. Usher by BH Fairchild --- just out from Norton, this new work is challenging me in ways I have not been in some time. The poems are meaty and rich, with a sense of time and urgency that leaps over actual time. I have read the poems several times each and am now making notes in the margins (I never used to do this but now can't help myself...more on this activity in a separate post)

2. Rosary of Bones by Jennifer MacPherson --- this is my second deep reading of this one--- it has been out since 07 --- I am at the notes in the margin stage with it now. A lovely collection of poems that simply take my breath away. Some of the poems have their birth in Iowa where we both studied with Michael Dennis Browne. I recognize them and smile to see how fully they have grown and how solid and steady Jennifer's hand is over the work. I am particularly fond of "Without Trees" and read it over and over along with "The Bone Poem" which is simply a fabulous poem. 'nuf said! Just read these poems!

3. Inflorescence by Sarah Hannah ---written before her tragic death. I sigh deeply here to think of all the wonderful voices silenced by suicide or cancer or ... or... or... these poems are both brilliant (in a light-giving way as well as an intellectual way) and steady. I read them and wonder "how did she do that?" which of course is the greatest compliment one can pay a poet.

4. Embryos & Idiots by Larissa Szporluk --- one of my favorite poets discovered by accident years ago in Iowa --- I recommend particularly "The Recluse" and "Twilight Wedge" both poems of surprising edginess and light.

OK that's enough for now. 

I'm signing off and will give you a short poem in the next post. It's one I wrote for the Poem A Day challenge during poetry month. THAT was some discipline. I am working now on revisions of the ones I feel want to stay in my life.

I thought I was lost but here I am!!!

OK, so with every site a new password and a new sign in process, I got temporarily lost. It won't happen again as I have written the darned thing down in a safe place!

Later a new post on the actual topic of poetry, I promise!