Saturday, April 26, 2008

Only the Best

I can't imagine being restricted to writing only one word on a given day. There are so many of them clamoring to get out of my head and go skittering across the page ... or to be posted on the screen.

On the day that I wrote this little poem, though, I must have been trying to imagine what it might be like to have to settle on just one word ... and I picked "friend," with its dictionary meaning of a person one knows well and is fond of ... plus all its other shades of meaning, depending on the reader's experience.

It has so many meanings. It conjures up images of a handshake, a hug, of sharing a conversation with someone, or just sitting quietly with them ... helping someone, being helped by someone, of someone you can trust, someone with whom you can share your thoughts ... secrets, even ...

It seems to be an all-purpose word, but it's a very precise word, too ... not a musical word, but one that can bring "music" to us, put a spring in our step, a glow that counters even the cloudiest of days.

The poem:

ONLY THE BEST

If I could write

just one word today,

what care I'd take

to pick the best

from the great array

of "previously-owned,

runs great" words,

for example: Friend.

© 1996

(originally published in Capper's)


***

Today's word: friend

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

A good word to have chosen!  I liked the poem, the words and thoughts and how it they were put together.

Anonymous said...

One more comment.  I loved the picture of the curtain. I wish I'd had that when I painted a similar one, and couldn't remember exactly how they put themselves in place to make a whole.  
Hope everybody's day is peachy.  Helen  

Anonymous said...

As the great-horned owl hoots outside and I am wishing I could fall asleep, "friend" sounds like a perfect word tonight.  In fact, as I began to compose a letter to a dear, faraway friend, I paused to read this latest poem.  Perfect.