(Today's art is a cooperative effort ... my grandson, Thomas, did the construction ... I took the photo)
Before I get into today's poem ... I noticed there were approximately 50 visitors to the site yesterday. Thank you for stopping by ... I hope you enjoyed your visit ... perhaps will drop by again.
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 his comments 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.
Today's 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)
Today's word: mundane
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 his comments 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.
Today's 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)
Today's word: mundane
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