A Poem A Day, Week Three

Prayer for A Marriage - Steve Scafidi (Tuesday)
A friend of mine is getting married Friday and another friend is getting married Saturday. Each couple has a different story and a different set of circumstances, but they both deserve the same wish.

Happiness - Raymond Carver (Wednesday)
I got home around 5:30 this morning. The sun had not breached the hill to the east of the house. The air smelled damp, and the birds' chirps sounded exactly like the alarm my brother had when we were in high school. Those recognitions were the "early morning stuff/that passes for thought" today.

Alphabet - Seamus Heaney (Thursday)
The more the child learns, the more complex the poem becomes. I especially like the way Heaney describes the way to make a letter in the first part.

The Possessive Case - Lisel Mueller (Friday)
When I was growing up, there was a clipping from the New Yorker on the bulletin board at our house. Mom had hung it up. I studied it and studied it, following the long line of the poem, which I did not realize was a poem at the time (I'm not sure I see it as a poem now, though it is clever). I thought it was just something silly that caught Mom's eye - then I found it in Good Poems.

We Real Cool - Gwendolyn Brooks (Saturday)
This is as clear as a photo, in 24 words. It could be a rap - that's how clear it is.

That Colorado Still Means Colored Stuns - Al Young (Sunday)
I learned more Colorado history reading this poem than I have in all my trips out there.

Soybeans - Thomas Alan Orr (Monday)
I've been thinking so much recently about food availability, about the intersection of grain as food and grain as fuel source, about the price of rice in the Philippines and the price of bread in the US. I've been thinking about the farmers, the bakers, the ranchers, the butchers.