Hymn to Hekate

There is no Homeric Hymn to Hekate, or none extant. There is an Orphic Hymn to her, and Hesiod praises her extensively in the Theogony. But when I was sitting for days on end with Ma Schmidt as she drifted towards death, I found myself musing. Hekate, like Hermes, is a psychopomp—a guide of souls of the newly-dead. who steers them from their bodies (recently abandoned in the world of the living) towards their new home in the Land of the Dead. And wouldn't it be nice if She could arrange that Ma Schmidt die without pain or fear? Of course I mean "die at the right time"—I had no desire to murder her! But if she could avoid the pain and fear, wouldn't that be nice?

In the end it didn't work out that way, or not obviously. But even after returning home I found myself wondering if I could write a hymn to Hekate like the ones I have written to some of the other gods. I've mulled it in fits and starts since then, and tonight—nine days after driving home—I think I have four verses of rhyming dactylic tetrameter. So maybe this will work.

Shining Hekate, beloved of Persephone,
Lady of crossroads and Mistress of night,
Your silver hand draws down the moon from the stars for
Thessalian witches intent on their rites.

Torch-bearing Maiden, a spark in the darkness, 
The mistress of magic, Protector of dogs,
You pass through the skies and the earth and the ocean,
And then disappear in the night and the fog.

Friend of the husbandman, laboring farmer,
You dole out success to whomever you choose.
Honor and profit and victory in warfare—
You pick who's rewarded and who is to lose.

Nurse of the newborns just op'ning their eyelids,
And guide of the dying, who close them again,
Help me prevail in my contests while living,
And shelter my soul when I come to you then.

     

Medieval poetry for the win!

You find the damnedest stuff on Twitter. (Excuse me, X.)

Today, for example, I found a pair of medieval Welsh poems. One is by a male poet, addressing his cock with some exasperation. Then a century later (or so) there's one from a female poet, complaining that men don't compliment women's cunts nearly as often as they should.

You'll find the details below the fold. 

Lilith

By John Collier - Own work, Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=207924

Can you handle one more? Here is another of Marie's early poems. Unlike the last two (here and here) it doesn't really advance the story any. But I like the image; and the more I think about it, the more I like it. Doubtless this just means I'm a lecherous old coot, but—what the hell? I'll take it.     

Lilith

Actually, it was I

who ate the fruit;

Eve’s sin

was in watching

and wanting to.

And it’s true

I steal children

But only girls;

And I don’t eat them

in the sense

that is supposed.

Roads not taken

Gosh, while I'm posting old poems from Marie (like this one), here's one she wrote during our first vacation together, back in the summer of 2016. (That was the vacation that I describe here.) She wrote it there, but she was too shy to show it to me at the time; so she emailed it to me after we had both returned to our respective homes.

The story behind the poem is that she had been lamenting that things turned out the way they did for us, in the sense that our first attempts at romance failed so badly. Also, neither of us did anything academic after our promising undergraduate careers, and wasn't that a waste? (Marie and I were both selected for ΦΒΚ, for example. So was Wife, for that matter. Sheesh!) I replied that nothing is pre-ordained, and that while maybe things might have gone better than they did, they also could have gone a hell of a lot worse. Here and there, over time, I discussed some of the options that we might have taken, and didn't. On the plus side, there was always the fantasy that we might have married and wound up both teaching at the same school somewhere. On the other hand, we each contemplated suicide when we were young, because we each (independently) felt trapped by our lives and despaired of anything ever getting better. So there were always lots of possibilities, and our job is to make the best of whatever we've landed ourselves in.

She mulled this, and then turned it into a poem, as follows.

In the same vein, please note also another poem that she wrote here: Hosea's Blog: It never happened (hoseasblog.blogspot.com).  

Back-story on Marie, year 1½

I posted the basics of this story back in late 2015, or thereabouts: see here, here, and here. But there is always more to tell in any story, isn't there? Recently Marie was looking through some of her old poems from back when we were in school together, and she found one she had written then but never showed me. It was about how she perceived all the failed, abortive conversations we had, where she would try to talk about how she was feeling, and looked for me to acknowledge her in some way ... and meanwhile I was strangling on my own inability to discuss anything emotional. (I've talked about some of that difficulty here, and here, and here.)

Anyway, when she sent me this I was struck by how well, how accurately, and with what economy and precision it summed up so many months of our conversations. Also, I think she meant the last line to sound despairing; but looking back from forty years later, I am struck by how prescient she was ... and in a good way!  

The Thief (a poem)

This was inspired by my discussion with Marie. But it goes in a direction all its own. 

 

The Thief 

When she was young, the girl went to a soothsayer, 

Watched as the grandmother laid out her cards. 

"This is your destiny, Seven of Daggers, 

You'll profit from treachery, subterfuge, theft." 

The girl joined the Crypteia, stealing to feed herself; 

Pillaging with the boys, binding her breasts; 

Bathing alone in the freezing-cold Eurotas; 

Never undressing and hiding her sex. 

Then she enrolled in a college for cutpurses, 

Studied from masters the Art of the Steal, 

Learned to abscond with whole civilizations 

And thieving from those who had stolen before. 

_____ 

One day she sat herself down for a reckoning, 

"Is this what I want for the rest of my life?" 

Turning away from her thieving and hiding, 

She made a new life herself, planting and growing things. 

But still in the back of her mind she heard echoing, 

Words that the soothsayer spoke long ago: 

"This is your destiny, Seven of Daggers, 

You'll profit from treachery, subterfuge, theft." 

And truly, the growing things brought her no profits, 

But left her to scratch out a living in sweat. 

She had the respect of her friends and herself too.

But mere self-respect doesn't pay any bills.

Marie and the Seven of Swords

Sometime last week Marie did a daily Tarot reading and she told me the seven of Swords showed up. We discussed her reading briefly and I expressed a little puzzlement at the card. It was in her Self position. Did she feel sneaky or deceptive?

She replied by sending me the following email:

Seven of swords....

It's actually one of the cards with special resonance for me; I got it a LOT when I was first reading/having readings done, back in college.  I even wrote a poem about the card; I never talked about that with you.  

I spent some time seeing if I could find the poem, but failed.  As I recall, I never completed it; it petered off.  I have recreated the first bit, but pretty sure there was a little more than I remember and not sure if this is accurate.  Anyhow, here it is:

Stealing Knives (originally ca. 1981/82)

Stealing knives

and will they slash my wrists?

Stealing knives

and will they cut my hands?

Poetry from the summer cottage

While we were vacationing at her family's summer cottage, Marie and I started writing a poem about it. Nothing original, mind you! The whole structure was a parody of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Kubla Khan. But it was a fun exercise. I'd render a stanza, then she'd do the next one, and so on. And we gave each other feedback, of course. I wound it up by doing the last 18 lines in a block, but I didn't show them to her at the time. I have just now put the whole thing in an email to her, and of course I want to post it here too. (If she makes any corrections, naturally I will update this post.)

I have changed a couple of proper names, in the hopes of preserving a shred of anonymity. With those changes made, here it is. 

Imitating Homer

Wow, another post referencing Homer in just under a month! I guess I must be on a roll ... or, umm, something ....

I thought about posting these over on the Patio, — just because they are Greek and pretentious, I guess. But there's really nothing philosophical about them. They are hymns, sort of — supposed to be in the mode of the Homeric Hymns. The first four are, indeed, directly adapted from specific Homeric Hymns, and date from the autumn of 1990; the next two are merely inspired or suggested by Homeric Hymns, and date from the last week or so.

For other dactylic poems of mine, you can look here and here.

To Athene (Hymn 11)

I sing of Athene, who watches our city,
With Ares she thrills to the waging of war!
Who keeps safe from harm the host charging to battle,
From shouting and plunder to come home once more.

To Hera (Hymn 12)

Golden-throned Hera, the daughter of Rhea,
The Queen of Immortals and fairest I sing,
Whom all of the gods high on lofty Olympus
Do honor with Zeus the loud-thundering King.

To Demeter (Hymn 13)

Awesome divinity, bright-haired Demeter.
You and your daughter, dear Persephone,
The fairest of maidens -- I sing in your honor.
Hail Goddesses! Guide both my city and me.

To the Most High, Son of Kronos (Hymn 23)

Of Zeus I shall sing now, the greatest in heaven,
His far-seeing wisdom puts all to the test.
With Right he takes counsel -- she sits near beside him.
Be gracious, O Kronion, noblest and best.

To Hermes

Cyllenian Hermes, begotten of Maia,
Who shyly stayed home in her cave, out of sight. 
Olympian Zeus came to visit in secret;
And they lay in love through the dark of the night.

Fortunate Hermes – your first day of life, you stole
Phoebus’s cows while pretending to sleep.
You strung the first lyre and high in the mountains
Of grass-rich Arcadia tended your sheep.

Luck-bringing Hermes, the master of speeches,
whose honey-dripped words can achieve any aim.
Guardian of travelers and merchants and thieving, 
For whom all our finding and losing's a game!

Olympian herald, you shepherd dead spirits
To meadows of asphodel, pallid and grey;
I sing of you now, and will sing again later.
Be gracious and grant that I not lose my way.

To Athene

Pallas Athene, spear-brandishing goddess,
Who bears the Gorgoneion — terrible shield!
Fearsome in battle, you scatter your enemies,
Stealing their wits till in terror they yield..

Pallas Athene, the guardian of cities,
Rejoicing in Justice and Right undefiled;
Who teaches the know-how of civilization,
That sets us apart from the beasts and the wild:

The bridle for horses, the loom to weave fabric,
the flute to make music, the olive for oil.
All these and more are the tools that you give us,
To bring productivity out of our toil.

Friend of the crafty and peerless in counsel,
Your sight probing deeply, your eyes shining grey;
I sing of you now and will sing again later.
Be gracious and grant that I not lose my way.

  

Lao Tzu on shamelessness

Eight years ago -- gosh, it's getting on towards nine by now -- I wrote in a poem here that failure is freedom while success means a kind of bondage. 

Recently I found that Lao Tzu had a similarly dim view of success. In the Tao Te Ching, poem 13 reads, in part:

SHAMELESS

To be in favor or disgrace

is to live in fear....

What does that mean,

to be in favor or disgrace

is to live in fear?

Favor debases:

we fear to lose it,

fear to win it.

So to be in favor or disgrace

is to live in fear.

--- from Ursula K. LeGuin's Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way, 1997.

Sent from the all new AOL app for Android

Marie and Semele

You know the story of Semele, right? Zeus seduced her and impregnated her; then she asked to see him in his glory as King of the Gods and she was incinerated when he appeared as a lightning bolt. The story says that Hera put her up to it, out of jealousy. Meanwhile it was one more story to prove that Fucking With Gods can be dangerous. Don't try this at home.

Then one night during her last visit, Marie said it happened to her.

OK, not exactly. Not literally. But somewhere in the middle of a marathon orgasm she had an … experience … that was just, … well, … different.

Later we talked about it. She said it was hard to describe; maybe it involved saying the unsayable. I joked back that this is what poetry is for. She explicitly made the connection with Semele, and wondered aloud if all the stories of bad things happening to Zeus's mistresses might not have been simply pictures to describe otherwise unsayable sexual experiences. We talked some more, but only around the edges of things.

Yesterday, a week after she flew home, I went for a walk and fiddled with the idea a little bit and then sent her this. My excuse for intruding on her story was that, well, whatever she was going to write was probably not in dactylic hexameter. So our versions would be different.

Poets recite the old story of Semele struck by a lightning bolt.

Was it the kind that incinerates? Did she fall dead as a consequence?

Or was it a manner of speaking -- attempting to say the unsayable?

Lying abed with the Sky-father, clutching his greatness inside herself,

Feeling familiar ecstasies rising and crashing like ocean waves,

All of a sudden -- and standing apart from her usual raptures -- 

A shock shot its way through her body, from cunt to the crown of her forehead,

Throwing her sharply outside herself, as if her awareness stood next to her.

Poleaxed and awestruck, not breathing, and striving to hold the immensity

That batted away her perception like kitty-cats batting a thimble,

She fell on the soft bed adoring -- a heifer struck down for a sacrifice.

Some women live through a death like this. 

Semele might have been one of them.

A few hours later, she replied with her version. And sure enough, it wasn't in dactylic hexameter.

It must have been a god

It cannot have been mortal

 

The pleasure was a lightning bolt

it tore through me

it burned

 

it consumed me, I tell you

 

there was no part of me left

 

Yet after

I was intact

or I seemed so

 

It must have been a god

but when I could look

I saw you

I don't think I have anything more to say, other than to let the poems speak for themselves. Anything more from my side would just spoil it.

But wow. It was different.

     

Directionless

I wish that I knew where to go from here,

Which way to turn to find another post.

I'm searching, but I just don't find it clear.

My resume's redone, or pretty near;

Though writing it, I find it hard to boast. 

But boasting's key to moving on from here.

On paper, yes, I've had a long career.

I should be more experienced than most.

But does it help? Well, that part's not so clear.

If I'm too old, folks worry I'll cost dear,

Or won't adapt. Of course I quick riposte,

But it means fewer ways to go from here.

What industry is hiring big this year?

With what new topics should I be engrossed?

The trend of business fashion's rarely clear.

I sit and stare, and -- idling -- start to fear

My working days have fled and I'm a ghost.

I wish that I knew where to go from here.

But even my desires are all unclear.

    

It's the little things

Two days ago, I got a couple of long emails from Wife.

A lot of what she wrote had to do With Son 1's health: he had a couple of COVID-19 scares this year (though his testing is consistently negative … but then there are a lot of false negatives with this disease) and she's concerned that he may have lingering damage to his lungs.

But then she went off in another direction. She reminded me that "years ago you wrote a poem, an invocation to the Lady, that I liked better than the one in our Book of Shadows. Do you have it, or remember it? Since I'm totally re-creating my Book, and since [her teacher] is dead (I don't know why that should matter since I've been out of touch with her for years, but it seems to, emotionally), I feel free to change the book as I rewrite it. That is based partially on … [There followed an obscure piece of gossip from the prehistory of the coven she trained in.] Anyway, I have only VERY recently (like last week) finished reading Ronald Hutton's The Triumph of the Moon even though you gave it to me for Yule years ago. Thank you very much for the gift, BTW.... [There followed a very long, quasi-historical justification for her making changes to the "tradition" she was trained in. See also, e.g., here or here.] And maybe I want to make some other changes, too. All of which is by way of saying that I liked your invocation very much, and would like to make it primary (though I see no reason not to keep the old one on file, too). I'd also like to ask you to write a parallel invocation to the God -- something in the same style. Please, when you have time. Something to mull when you're standing in line at airports or whatever."

This looks long, but trust me I have cut it down by at least half. Wife never learned the art of concision.

Normally I try to keep my communications with her strictly business, but in this case I was chattier.

I didn't know that [your teacher] had died, but I googled her after reading your letter and sure enough I found her. [Link to death notice.] July 11 of this year, from COVID-19. How did you find out? Also I wonder what ever happened with the child she adopted? Of course that child must be an adult by now -- around 30 or so? Time flies. 

As for the invocation … I wonder if we are remembering the same thing? The only one I can remember was meant as a direct replacement for [and I quoted a specific invocation from her Full Moon liturgy, something ponderous and not rhyming]…. 

Anyway, with that as a framework it came out as:

Holy Isis, holy Isis, 
She who comfort ever brings,
Pallas Isis, Hathor Isis,
Shelter us beneath your wings!

Sothis Isis, Sati Isis,
She who steers the stars above,
Accept this Self in sacrifices,
Fill this cup with all thy love!

Is that the one you meant? If not, I'll have to ask you to give me some more clues to jog my memory.

Honestly, I never knew you liked that. Thank you. It's nice to hear.

I couldn't tell you exactly what I wanted to hear back, but I meant the email to be friendly, to be an opening. I was struck to learn that her teacher was dead, though in retrospect it wasn't a huge surprise: she was older than we are (no longer young!) and always in poor health, so it is not shocking that COVID-19 should have killed her. But I always kind of liked her teacher, and was sorry anyway, even if it wasn't strictly speaking a shock. Also I was curious how she had heard, since so far as I knew Wife was pretty much completely detached from the pagan community these days.

And I wanted her to hear that last sentence. During all the years we were together I took in her criticisms with my food and drink, practically with my breath, but praise was rare indeed. Maybe once a year or so, usually on Father's Day, she would give me credit for being a good father; about that often, more or less, she would admit that she felt she could always trust me, that my sense of honor and decency was more or less unimpeachable. Even after we separated, she conceded that I did all the heavy lifting in drafting our separation agreement, and that she would have been in a much worse situation if I had not been fundamentally kind and equitable. She did say these things -- bloody rarely -- and of course that mattered.

But more commonplace compliments were nearly non-existent. We had been married four years or more before she ever admitted to finding me sexually attractive. Once year I wrote her a brace of four sonnets for her birthday, and I don't remember her saying anything kind or gracious about them … just "Thank you," in a tone that could have applied to doing the laundry. And it really made a difference. It set my expectations for the whole marriage. So I wanted her to see that last line, and to understand that she had never communicated any kind of appreciation for the creations of my mind … and maybe even to guess that this could have affected the marriage.

So what happened? She never replied to that email at all.

Sometimes she is just bad at replying to email, but that wasn't it. About the same time she had sent me another email asking for a definition of exurb. I replied pointing her to the Wikipedia article on the subject, and that she thanked me for! But to the more substantive email … silence.

Yesterday I finally broke down and asked her if it had arrived. She replied, "Yes, thanks!"

In other words, nothing much has changed. If I think about it, I realize that her failure to provide little compliments for little things wasn't really because she hated me (though it often felt like that) but because she somehow didn't understand why they mattered. She even said, once or twice, that in her mind if she didn't say anything, that meant things were fine. That was a compliment, from her perspective. She would only speak up when things were bad. And it flatly never occurred to her that this strategy could be a problem.

I shouldn't have posed that kind of a test for her, leaving a clue that I waited and hoped she would pick up. I should have known up front that she would never see it, never pick it up, and never understand why that mattered.

It still hurt, though, to hear nothing at all.

I know this is a little thing. It is silly even to write a post about it. It's one tiny thing in a forest of similar events that stretches back to when I first met her, more than 35 years ago.

But little things matter. Leaving aside all other considerations, they can (if you leave them alone) accumulate into big things. 

And they can hurt. Even something as small and simple as not being seen.    

 

Remind Me Next April

NOTE: I am posting this in February 2023, almost three years late. But I just found (or re-found) the poem on my hard drive, and I want to record it before I lose it again. I am back-dating it to the date I received it.

Debbie and I were talking on the phone, and I mentioned that I had written a poem based on the COVID-19 lockdowns. (Of course I mean this one here.) She remarked that she had written one too, a few months before. We agreed to exchange poems so I sent her mine and she sent me this one.

Remind Me Next April

Next April,
When my being is lazy and torpid
After the long Midwest winter
And all I want to do is
Stay in my pajamas
And read or knit,
Remind me how much 
I enjoy preparing my garden beds 
for planting.

Next April,
When my spirit is heavy
Because the coronavirus 
Is still with us
And there is not yet a vaccine
And many have died,
Remind me how my soul
Is healed when I turn
The earth over with a pitchfork
And break up a dirt clod 
With my hands, 
Amazed at the rich black soil,
Teaming with eager earthworms. 

Next April,
If I am not here,
As indeed I might not be,
Know how much joy
I felt on this
April day,
Standing in my garden
With the sun on my back,
The sounds of lawn mowers
And children playing
In my ears,
Black dirt and earthworms
In my hands.

Next April,
If I am here or if I am not,
Know how much I love this precious life
And how much 
I love you.

[Debbie]
April 19, 2020
[Her city and state].

     

July 5, 2020

It's very cozy here inside my shell,
While outside the Coronavirus rages.
If you get sick, I hear it hurts like Hell.

It's quiet here -- I like it, truth to tell.
I'll make some tea, a snack, and turn the pages
Of some delightful book here in my shell.

I've taken care to stock my larder well.
It's lucky that I still can draw my wages,
Though unshowered and uncombed I look like Hell.

For those with other jobs this shutdown fell
Like a ton of bricks, as no-one them engages.
That leaves their pocketbooks an empty shell.

And elsewhere crowds of angry people yell,
"Police do murder!" "They lock kids in cages!"
Then tear gas answers. And it burns like Hell.

I wonder if this year will sound the knell
For our Republic, with its hopes courageous.
It's very cozy here inside my shell,
But outside all the world is going to Hell.

    

Santa Lucia poems

I mentioned Saint Lucy's Day to Marie, and explained that the Swedes say it is the darkest night of the year. (And in fact, before they shifted to the Gregorian calendar it would have aligned with the Winter Solstice.) I even told her something about how they celebrate it in Sweden, although I'm pretty sure I haven't told her the story of my evening with Lilliana. Anyway, it clearly made her think about the day, the weather, and any portents that might shine forth from the one or the other. And today, a week later (or almost) she sent me this:


The Eve of Santa Lucia

Full moon tonight.
Cold moon, bitter moon,
some have called it,
but I hope for grace:
a night of pure light
at the dark center of the year,
as the days spiral downwards,
closing in.

But the sky is clouded,
obscured;
there is no light save what we furnish.
So we light guttering candles,
So we string lines of color against the darkness,
So we strew cheap tinsel
to bring light where there is none.


I read this while I was still at work. And I liked it -- of course, I like any poems she sends me -- but I really couldn't think of anything to say back. Later tonight, as I sat in bed drinking and postponing actual sleep, I read it again. I thought about the implicit complaint that she looks for grace, for light, in the world but finds only the light we create. The world itself is dark and it is up to us to do something about it. Or not.

And as I thought about that lament I opened a text file on my phone, and the following answer came to me almost (not quite) as fast as I could type it. (Also I have since then changed one word at Marie's suggestion.)


The little lights hang in electric strands
On trees bedecked with tinsel and with trim.
Bright neon is the work of human hands
To shine when night is foggy, dark, and grim.

The year, just like the day, has its dark night,
When all is bleak and frozen and forlorn.
We hope to see a sign, a flash of light,
But there’s only what we make, till spring is born.

But it was ever thus. For long ago,
When Saint Lucia’s Night and solstice came,
We’d huddle in the dark, against the snow,
And build a bonfire fierce with ruddy flame.

And from that man-made fire that burned so bright,
We drew the hope to stand against the night.


Sleep well, you all.
  

It never happened

A few days ago, as soon as I drafted by poem on the FMEA method, I sent it to Marie and asked for her feedback to make it better. A few days later she sent me a reply that she hadn't done anything with my poem yet, but that a book she was reading had inspired her to write one of her own.

====================

“The shadow past is shaped by everything that never happened.” Robert Macfarlane, Underland.
 
it never happened
that i wed you as a girl
that we ran lightly
among trees hung with yellow fruit
 
it never happened
that i threw myself away
into the dark
 
it never happened
that we never
met again
 
we are here, and all that
never happened

Training in the FMEA method

I'm sitting here in a training class in Sticksville on the FMEA methodology, and the instructor just finished introducing a typology of failures. Briefly, any kind of tool, product, or service is defined by having a certain kind of function. And once you know what the function is, then a "failure" is a deviation from the desired function. And there are five possible kinds of deviation:

• No function at all ("total failure")
• Quantitative deviation (it does the right thing but in the wrong amount, too little or too much)
• Time deviation (it does the right thing but too early, or too late, or it misfires somehow)
• There is an unintended or undesirable function
• There are impermissible side effects (noise, heat, radiation)

So far, so good. But it got me thinking: do these same types apply to human failures as well? I think they do ... and here is my first pass at thinking through how that could work.

“How many kinds of failure are there, now?”

The trainer asked us, reading from the screen.
And answered, “Five — it all depends on how
“The non-fulfillment of the function’s seen.”

“There’s total failure: nothing’s done at all.
“Then quantitative: little or too much;
“Early or late; wrong functions great or small;
“Or side-effects, like noise and heat and such.”

I harbor all of these deep in my heart:
The sluggard who just dreams, I know him well;
The one who does it backwards, end to start,
Who’s thoughtless, and whose voice clangs like a bell.

For every type of failure we define
Is surely one that I can claim as mine.

    

Reflections on vacation

As I write this, it's October. But back in July -- when I have dated the post -- I sent the following letter to Marie as a follow-up to our vacation in New Zealand. I think it speaks for itself.
__________

Hey sweetness!

 

I didn’t know where this was going to go at first, but it ended up being a restatement of the idea I proposed last week that part of why we go on vacation is actually for the sheer trouble and inconvenience of it all. (And anyone who has ever been camping will have numerous examples to hand! Yet people still go camping ….)

 

It’s not great – in some [many!] ways I think it may be too precious by half – and I welcome suggestions for improvement. All I can say in its defense is that – dear heavens, but it seems like our conversation has gone on for too long a stretch without any poetry! Maybe I’m just failing to pay attention or maybe I’m counting wrong, but it felt high time to do something about it.

 

=======

 

There’s rhythm in the hum of day-to-day,

Of coffee, emails, work to do and done –

A kind of verse, a poem in its way,

That sings us on our road from sun to sun.

 

So breakfast rhymes with breakfast, task with task,

We go to work each day just like before.

The tune so charms us that we never ask

If out beyond this round hides something more.

 

There’s comfort in this song of somnolence.

To break it off is pain and irritation.

Disrupting habits leaves us fraught and tense.

And trouble is the hallmark of vacation.

 

But now and then this inconvenience

Is just the balm, the medicine we need,

When by good fortune it can jar us loose

To break the crust of our too-daily selves.

 

Put down the phone.

Wade through water, not through words.

 

Go feel the breeze.

And listen to the birds.

    

On inspiration

It's truly said the Muses will not speak 

To those who will not listen — that's to say

The ones who cannot trouble to attend, 

Who're mindful only of the mindless World.

It used to be a trope, back years ago,

Romantic poets sighing would bemoan

The loss of their inspired poetic gifts

That left them mumbling prose like mortal men.

So maybe this is just what poets do,

To grouse when they have nothing else to say,

To strut and preen and pose like mannequins 

And puff their nothings full of empty wind.

If that's, then, all it takes, why every dog 

Can call himself a poet — even I!

Sent from my iPhone