April 30.20: Coping

And so, dear reader, do we come to the end of Poetry Month, which I have endeavored to mark with a poem a day. I have greatly appreciated your company along the way, and I thank you with something for today’s celebration of Poem-In-Your-Pocket Day.  I have sent this to you before, but, since it’s one of my favorites, I send it again.

THE MIRACLE OF SPRING

We glibly talk

of nature’s laws

but do things have

a natural cause?

Black earth becoming

yellow crocus

is undiluted

hocus-pocus.

                                 — Piet Hein

 

I can’t say I’m any closer to a satisfying definition of poetry. It completely eludes me why some things are considered poems. Although I try to work with rhyme, it’s not because I think rhyme makes a poem; it’s something else that makes a poem. That part is mysterious to me.

But besides marking poetry month, I wrote daily as a way of coping. Poetry month might be over, but I still have to cope, so I might continue the mighty effort to post something every day. It’s good for me to try. I hope you are finding ways to cope, too. The anguish of this time is real and deep and we have to find ways to hold on to our humanness.

April 29.20: Coping

What do we know?

Could we write unafraid?

Would anyone read it?

Would it get a good grade?

Are we grounded in anything

we’d write and then sign,

with sacred Honor, Fortune,

and Life on the line?

What do we know

winnowed by living,

what grain of belief

left for our scrivening?

 

More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg

for the nostalgic image,

and to Thomas Jefferson

for the enduring words.

 

April 28.20: Coping

I know it’s just pretend,

a world contrived for stage,

but I want to see some people,

some over-easy eggs.

Those stools were made for twirling,

the mustard made to squirt,

the door was made for swinging,

but they’re eerily inert.

The world’s a stage, the poet said,

for fools to strut and fret;

that may be so but still we miss

the people for the set.

 

 

And so, dear reader, we bungle on without people on our sets.

I hope you endure.

With thanks to photographer S.W. Berg

and, of course, to The Bard.

April 27.20: Coping

Sometimes it’s the same old pond

and you are too much in it,

so you rest your belly in the grass

and contemplate a minute.

To step away and try to see

the whole of anything,

it helps to have a grassy spot

and quiet in your wing.

 

 

 

 

April 26.20: Coping

Let’s start the week

with a fond reminiscence

of life’s punctuation

with sweet evanescence.

Dessert is but transient

gone in a trice

yet forever recalled

as joy in a slice.

So here on purpled plate

an offering to you

of memory, then hope,

evoked by finest goo.

 

 

And maybe, dear reader, a day will come when we eat dessert with others —

safely!

Meanwhile, I salute you with blueberry goo and hope you are safe and healthy.

 

More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg, and his fine eye for desserts!

And applause to Forno, Baltimore, for the gorgeous presentation!

April 25.20: Coping

With careful smear of clouds

does artist render

sky

to temper crash of cobalt

against my restive

eye.

 

More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.

 

April 24.20: Coping

I doubted I heard it,

a very small OOF:

there was no one but me

under this roof.

But here was the toiler,

the behatted proof,

a daunting grand entrance

for my personal behoof.

 

 

Once again a tip of the writer’s hat to “behoof,” a word sadly untrendy in our times.

 

 

April 23.20: Coping

Yesterday I talked to a frozen slice of rye bread, a box of baking soda, and a toilet flush box.

That may not be a poem, but it’s the truth.

April 22.20 Earth Day: Coping

In révérence

obeisant brow

salute to Earth

in graceful bough.

 

 

A somber Earth Day, dear reader,

but may there be buds for you.

 

April 21.20: Coping

An introvert

isn’t hurt

so much by isolation.

But even so

this I know

1

is a poor population.

 

More thanks to photographer S.W. Berg.