Thursday, February 10, 2011

Poetry



I have been thinking about Valentine's Day, my first one as a married man, and I got thinking about a poem I was first introduced to back in the early 2000's.  I just liked the poem and it has stuck with me for a long time.  Since I ate tacos on Tuesday night at Kuk's in Northport, WA and Shelly loves animals, it reminded me once again of February 14th.  Get thinking about Valentine's yourselves and get that special someone a little something-something.

It is called Valentine for Ernest Mann by Naomi Shihab Nye.

You can't order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, "I'll take two"
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.

Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, "Here's my address,
write me a poem," deserves something in reply.
So I'll tell you a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.

Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn't understand why she was crying.
"I thought they had such beautiful eyes."
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he reinvented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of the skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.

Maybe if we reinvent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.

- Naomi Shihab Nye
  in The Red Suitcase, Brockport, NY: BOA Editions, 1994.



No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.