In Praise of the Mundane

                        

 

(Today's art is a cooperative effort ... my grandson, Thomas, did the construction ... I took the photo)

It seems like only yesterday ... but obviously was a little longer ago than that ... when I shared my poem, "Ordinary Things," with you ... and mentioned that it was an outgrowth of a rejection.

In response to my request for a comment on some poems I had submitted, the editor had scrawled something about "mundane treatment of ordinary subjects" on the rejection slip.

My initial reaction? I had hoped for something a little more constructive.

But I managed. As a matter of fact, I managed to get two more poems out of that comment.

Oh, and both were subsequently published ... elsewhere. I think there's an obvious lesson in that ... so obvious that even Professor Squigglee (remember him?) would be unlikely to fly into a detailed explanation.

The poem:

 

IN PRAISE OF THE MUNDANE

I don't howl at the moon,

read the entrails of chickens,

plumb the mysteries that reside

in the implacable eyes of cats,

nor take up strange, aromatic

cigarettes, sip unaccumstomed

teas, nor leave my body

to roam the universe.

 

I do write across the chalkboard

of my mind, or on a torn paper,

an envelope, about simple things

that come to me of their own accord,

quiet, mundane things that I welcome

and treasure as old friends.

© 1996

(originally published in ByLine Magazine)

 

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Today's word: mundane