Friday, July 15, 2016

Through tornadoes and harvests

Maybe that is the greatest of wonders: that we can be shaped so much by those we've known closely, and equally by those we've never known at all - and that we too can change the world long after we've left it.
~Jacob M. Appel


A couple of poems with a grandparent theme from Rattle's Buddhist edition for this Poetry Friday.

JOY RIDE
by Karen Benke

I tell my son I wish I didn’t have to go to work today
and he says he wishes he didn’t have to go to school.
He’s tired of darkening in right answer bubbles.
I ask what we’d do if we could play hooky and he says
we’d go through the tunnel and pick up Nana Friday,
wondering if people who died can come too.
You know, like Grandpa Don and Auntie Toots?


Read the rest here

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When the Buddha Farmed Nebraska
by Peg Quinn

Grandpa emanated Buddha nature,
yet I doubt he’d heard the phrase.

He gave thanks after hitting his thumb
with a hammer

Read the rest here


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A Year of Reading has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Mary Lee!

8 comments:

Carol said...

Tabatha-
I LOVE both of these. So perfect. Should I tell you they made me cry? Thank you!

Tara said...

I'm with Carol - so much to love and cry about in both these poems, Tabatha.

Mary Lee said...

I'm connecting most to the Buddha farmer in Nebraska. My heart goes out to Eastern Colorado wheat farmers -- they put their heart and soul into their work, their crops, our future food...and then rain after rain prevents harvest, until it's suddenly too hot and too dry with a blast of Sahara wind that shrivels the kernels...the ones that weren't pounded to smithereens by hail earlier in the summer.

Linda B said...

Ingrid remembers her Grandpa, visited with me often, and we talk often about what he might do with her if he were still here. The first poem touched me so personally, Tabatha. Thanks you for your thoughtful ways always.

Keri said...

A very nice tribute to your father-in-law, my friend. I would love to put some long-gone relatives in my car and go for a drive. xoxo

author amok said...

I've just been reading Mary Lee's post about Moo, Sharon Creech's new book. The Peg Quinn poem you shared might make a good pairing.

Bridget Magee said...

I recently discovered Karen Benke - and love reading her "Joy Ride" poem today, Tabatha. Love these lines:
"You just love who you love.
And that’s the right answer to everything."
Truth. =)

Heidi Mordhorst said...

I too am discovering Karen Benke, and I just love what I love, the joyride with the impossible, the unnamed highway of light that sort of showed up in my post as a unnamed pendulum of light!