Poetry Friday with Wes McNair, Maine Poet

Why We Need Poetry
By Wes McNair


Everyone else is in bed, it being, after all,
three in the morning, and you can hear
how quiet the house has become each time
you pause in the conversation you are having
with your close friend to take a bite
of your sandwich. It is getting the wallpaper
around you in the kitchen up at last
that make cucumbers and white bread, the only
things you could find to eat, taste so good
or is it the satisfaction of having discovered
a project that could carry the two of you
into this moment made for nobody else?




The complete poem can be read and listened to at the following Colby College website
http://web.colby.edu/specialcollections/2010/05/03/whypoetry-tcluster/
There are other poems from his newest book of poetry titled "Lover's of the Lost".
I love listening to them.

Poetry Friday

There are Times When
By Nancy March


There are times when
A good book’s character
Keeps me up at night
Wondering …


There are times when
A song’s lyrics
Makes my heart pump with
Song …


There are times when
A painting’s details
Gives me pause, I
Question…


There are times when
the hand of friendship
Walks with me down a path
Reassuring …


There are times when…

Mindful by Mary Oliver

Mindful
by Mary Oliver

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

From Why I Wake Early

Dinner in a Nest of Thyme

The fog lifted later in the morning making it possible to stroll in the garden and forage for dinner. It's like solving a mystery and thinking about what is possible.
A large green pepper hanging from a sturdy, rugged, dark green plant is the first of many possibilities for the dinner table. Peeking beneath large leaves are 2 "garden eggs" in all their blackish purple splendor pleading for my attention. Attached to spiral vines and among the bright yellow blossoms are two prickly cucumbers which make my mouth water for their crispy fresh snap of their flesh. A few peas remain on withering plants and I snap them from the vine imagining their sweetness. The basil needs a trim and my fingers and thumb pluck a fresh bouquet. The last of the romaine lettuce is clipped and ready for salad. The blueberries are just beginning to ripen and I roll them into the clay bowl. A few zinnias brighten this gray morning and inspire me. Now, that I've gathered the gifts of my garden my creativity goes to work - a whole wheat pizza with chopped peppers, eggplant, basil, and tomatoes from the local farmer's market. A salad of romaine, basil, blueberries, peas, and cucumbers, a little dill & thyme, will be tossed in one of Becca's clay bowls with a little olive oil and lemon. The Zinnia's join daisies, day lilies, and black -eyed susans in an old blue canning jar in the center of the table. Even this gray muggy day is an opportunity to imagine and create and for that I'm grateful.