A while back, I started noticing Poem-a-Day as an entry in my Yahoo mail. Some were good, some were vapid, some were just blah!
I start off each day by checking emails and then either create or adjust websites for my clients by adding the latest newsletter, or an image, or a new offer. The second step is adding comments to my Facebook page. Funny or witty adages always draw input from friends. Many times, they add to a pun, which means I answer back with a pun . . . and the tag team goes on.
You are welcome to visit my Facebook page – facebook.com/publicdoman/
One thing always leads to another. I began looking for structure and developed a pattern that works for me. I don’t know that it works for my friends and visitors, but then, it’s my structure.
I post a poem, an adage/pun, good news, an adage/pun, my latest article or someone else’s article from The Suburban Times, an adage/pun, information on a non-profit event (St Vinnies, TACID, Nourish, local candidates), an adage/pun, good news, an adage/pun, breaking news . . . usually about the ruination of our republic, an adage/pun, and perhaps a political cartoon.
I like starting out with a poem. I choose one that feels appropriate for the day, or one that just resonates with me. About a week ago I posted “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver. It is sometimes called “The Grasshopper,” because she draws such a picture of life from this creature. My friend Richard Dorsett, confined to a strict routine of cancer fighting “chemo” has been writing of his thoughts each day as he goes through treatment. He read The Summer Day and stopped writing and spent the time reading Mary Oliver’s poems. He sent me a Youtube recording of Mary Oliver reading that poem. It was followed by another Oliver poem, “The Wild Geese.”
Wild Geese really connected with me as I had just the day before been watering my wife’s plants on our deck and heard the honking of geese. I looked up in the warm blue sky to see a small flock of geese flying by. Two days later I included the poem and the Mary Oliver speaking link in my morning Facebook opening.
I’ve long loved poetry. In high school I adored Keats, Shelly, and Byron . . . yes, yes, yes . . . I am a romantic. You would be amazed how often I get a chance to use the opening line from Keat’s “The Eve of St. Agnes.”
Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold . . .
Peg and I once hired an ex-student from Clover Park Vocational School as a camera man and video editor. Antonio, Tony, aspired to be a rapper. I let him use our equipment for some of his non-profit friends. He was of Puerto Rican heritage via New York. I have a Covid-19 mask featuring the American flag and the Puerto Rican flag. I like to think of it as a tribute to Tony. He moved to California, but sometimes returns to Tacoma. Antonio Edwards, Jr. was the Tacoma Poet Laureate (2009 – 2010) and he returned to Tacoma in 2017 for a spoken word performance. It was riveting.
A Tacoma visit from Tony – thesubtimes.com/2017/10/10/speak-no-evil-spoken-word-performance-by-antonio-edwards-jr/
Poetry is all around us . . . it speaks to us . . . and all we have to do is listen.
The Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
– Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver reading The Wild Geese
