Involves lying in the grass on a Sunday afternoon. Consists of playing bocce or throwing the ball for the winemaker’s dog. Pertains to chasing black chickens and colorful roosters across the lawn separating the tasting room from the vintner’s house. Includes the chubby little fingers of the vintner’s daughter, Pepper, reaching on top of the cheese table and pulling grapes off their stems before popping them into her little mouth. Is poured in a glass and tastes like sunshine smiling on grapes. Or it especially works well if you just came from a poetry reading at the main library in San Francisco from Copper Canyon press.
A day reserved for the earth is like a month reserved for poetry. So while April is known as Poetry Month, what I like best about it is how a few friends and myself have chosen to try and upload original poems on our facebook pages throughout the month. That’s a good way to stay in touch and also see what everyone else is thinking about. So however you choose to find the poetry in your days, share it with someone you like or maybe even love.
Ok, so, I know your post was about poetry, but I just have to share that Pepper is such a dear name to my heart. Pepper was my BFF in kindergarten. Sigh. And then we moved. And moved. And moved. Ok, off to pluck a grey hair. ha.
I choose you as the person I’d like to share my poetry of the day with! My day’s poetry was…driving home with the windows rolled down whilst perfect guitar riffs serenaded me. And I unabashedly sang along.
Nice to see some updates after a long blogging hiatus. I haven’t written a poem or even some “netless” scratch verse in a few years but maybe it is time to clean off the old quill and have a go.
Something to share, from 1994:
“Ezra P”
Ezra, a light to guide my pen!
Center my craft with Confucian truth
No facile scapegoats of the Second War
Enough starred souls lie scattered over the vast killing floor
Plant my bare soles in the footsteps of your embered journey
Render now the warped wood of Whitman
Pass your carving tool, your awl, your axe
Must you cling so tightly to its handle?
I will cling to the man ‘o’ men
Enough starred souls lie scattered over the vast killing floor