Back to Class

I had taken a break from my poetry class. After 5 yrs I needed some distance. It’s just my chemistry. But today was Florence’s 90th birthday and I had to be there.

Even though we’re all over 60 (that’s the requirement for this class) it doesn’t matter that there are canes or walkers … even a wheelchair … when class starts and the canes are put down, the walkers folded up, we are classmates around a big table who are eager to hear each other’s voices.

Today there was a gripe about some folks bringing in memoir-type stuff instead of a poem. I piped up and said that even more than the poems, we’re here because we’ve come to care very much about each other, and I for one don’t care what people bring in as long as I hear their voices in it.

So you can tell, I’m feeling emotional. Look, I don’t always like these people or the teacher, but as I look around the room these are the people I know best … because you can’t hide who you are if your poems are going to be good!

And haven’t you noticed, folks, that when you really know someone, unless they’re genuinely horrible you end up caring about them?

Isn’t that how it is with family? Even the ones who are strange or stupid or embarrassing … they have a firm place in our hearts because we’ve known them so long. Will someone please explain that? There must be some biology behind it!!

Now, if you’ve hung in all this way, here’s a poem I wrote today:

Once Known

It’s nice to think of life flitting by

throughout the universe since time began

touching this random body with ice,

that one with storms, another with a dinosaur or two …

It’s nice to think that every tiny and every grand

bit of substance here within the universe

has known its moment in the sun

however brief, and even as they shiver

in the wake of the loss of it, they remember.