My first poem for April’s poetry month. I decided to do an Ottava rima because it sounded like Ottawa, where I live, even though Ottawa has nothing to do with the number 8. (Ottawa is derived from the Algonquin word “adawe”, which means “to trade.”)
The poem has eight lines with an abababcc rhyming scheme. Inspired by the photo below.
Going through old posts, I found a picture to give us a boost today.
Happy face pothole
It is the time of year for potholes in Ottawa, Canada where I live. The ground is thawing and contracting after expanding through the frozen winter. Road salt exacerbates the damage to the asphalt that crumbles under the wheels of cars.
On this pothole, patched by black asphalt, a happy person painted an orange happy face.
When life sends you potholes, put on a happy face.
Sunday was World Poetry Day, as proclaimed by UNESCO. In honour of that event, I have written a poem, which I will share with you now.
(Ahem)
I say . . .
I don't care what you say.
I see . . .
Yes, through my eyes.
But . . . that way, we're both blind.
.
A poem to send us into the day with the intention of kindness to all and celebration of everyone, no matter how different from us they might be.
Our technology gives our generation an opportunity that generations before did not have.
We can reach out instantly across the world to share our stories.
We can learn and strive to understand the stories of other cultures.
We can solve problems together and share resources.
What an opportunity we have! But we’re squandering it with our hate and derision. We’re using technology to create deeper divides instead of to close the gaps.
We’re being little. I’m guilty of it myself.
For today, I’ll try to do better.
April is National Poetry Month. I have set myself the challenge for that month of writing a poem a week. (I don’t promise that it will be GOOD poetry.)
Twice in the past week I started very serious, important emails about very serious important matters to colleagues. Both times, instead of writing “Good morning,” my index finger travelled too far to the right on the keyboard, and I typed “Goof morning.”
Astonishing how much that made me smile.
The very serious, important matters felt not so very serious or important after all. The typo brought a flukey flash of happiness that changed the course of my day.
Don’t get set into one form: adapt it and build your own, and let it grow. Be like water. Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless—like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; you put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; you put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.
Over the past year, during my work at the library or as a writer, I’ve heard comments like this:
I’m trying to read now that I have more time, but I can’t concentrate!
My mind doesn’t want to focus on anything “heavy.” My productivity has plummeted.
I’m supposed to be working/writing, but it’s so difficult to stick with it.
The stresses of COVID are messing with our minds, and our productivity.
Today I wanted to lie on my couch and do nothing. That sounded like the BEST plan.
I opened my phone. I clicked on an old link. I found Bruce Lee’s phrase, and I got up off the couch.
“Imagine throwing a pebble into a still pond. How does the water respond? The answer is, totally appropriately to the force and mass of the input, then it returns to calm. It doesn’t overreact or underreact.”
A few weeks ago I posted this photo of a mailbox. I speculated about groundhogs snoozing abed under the snow.
The mailbox with no name.
But I really took this picture about a year ago, not thinking about groundhogs at all. I took it while on a drive with my mother on the country roads around my hometown. As we drove, I was struck by something: the mailboxes had no names written on them.
In my youth, every mailbox at the end of every country drive bore the name of the homeowner. The letters might be scrawled crookedly, or the stick-on kind you find at the hardware store, or beautiful script, but they were there. During country drives you would pass by and say, “Oh, there’s the Miller place,” or “The McLaughlins live there.”
No more.
The namelessness feels like a dent in community. Something that used to be open now closed.
Protecting our privacy is good, they say. Still, the need for it makes me sad. Nameless, if you will.
Somerton Smith 