October
Overhead,
clouds graze, fat and lazy, across the bluest sky—
torn between the fading heat of the sun
on one shoulder and the cooling kissing
breeze on the opposite cheek, I'm
ecstatic that the haunting daytime crickets have
returned to be soundtrack for brilliant dying leaves.
A simple acrostic, in which the first letter of each line spells a word. Admittedly, not a great start to the game, but a start nonetheless. The basic idea came to me this afternoon as I walked across the parking lot at Barnes & Noble, the sun burning down on my left shoulder and a cool breeze puffing at the right side of my face. October is one of those in-between times, the evening of the year, sort of a month of twilight.
I had a couple of other things I considered writing about. First, Jimmy Carter. Today was his birthday 86th birthday. Today's Writer's Almanac had a couple of interesting details about him that I thought worthy of a little poetry--for one, he was the first US president to be born in a hospital; for another, his family used to bring books to the supper table and sit there eating and reading in silence.
Then we had the opening ceremony of ETSU's centennial celebration this morning. Not a bad show. My favorite part was the bluegrass band. But I was also impressed by a kind of haunting video in which old photographs from the university's history were alternated with color shots of contemporary life on campus. The haunting part is seeing, for example, a black-gray-white girl walking out of a campus building--like Burleson Hall--and slowly she is backdropped by the red brick of the building and surrounded by colorful students talking on cell phones and listening to iPods.
I also had a physical this afternoon, which I thought I might write about. It was a complete physical, and since I'm over 50 years old, it included the finger treatment. But I didn't really want to go there, especially since I was so late getting around to trying to create something.
Regardless of what Blogger's time stamp says, I'm posting this at 10:57 pm. Day One of the game completed, if not that well played.
clouds graze, fat and lazy, across the bluest sky—
torn between the fading heat of the sun
on one shoulder and the cooling kissing
breeze on the opposite cheek, I'm
ecstatic that the haunting daytime crickets have
returned to be soundtrack for brilliant dying leaves.
A simple acrostic, in which the first letter of each line spells a word. Admittedly, not a great start to the game, but a start nonetheless. The basic idea came to me this afternoon as I walked across the parking lot at Barnes & Noble, the sun burning down on my left shoulder and a cool breeze puffing at the right side of my face. October is one of those in-between times, the evening of the year, sort of a month of twilight.
I had a couple of other things I considered writing about. First, Jimmy Carter. Today was his birthday 86th birthday. Today's Writer's Almanac had a couple of interesting details about him that I thought worthy of a little poetry--for one, he was the first US president to be born in a hospital; for another, his family used to bring books to the supper table and sit there eating and reading in silence.
Then we had the opening ceremony of ETSU's centennial celebration this morning. Not a bad show. My favorite part was the bluegrass band. But I was also impressed by a kind of haunting video in which old photographs from the university's history were alternated with color shots of contemporary life on campus. The haunting part is seeing, for example, a black-gray-white girl walking out of a campus building--like Burleson Hall--and slowly she is backdropped by the red brick of the building and surrounded by colorful students talking on cell phones and listening to iPods.
I also had a physical this afternoon, which I thought I might write about. It was a complete physical, and since I'm over 50 years old, it included the finger treatment. But I didn't really want to go there, especially since I was so late getting around to trying to create something.
Regardless of what Blogger's time stamp says, I'm posting this at 10:57 pm. Day One of the game completed, if not that well played.
posted by mac | 7:40 PM
2 Comments:
I think it's an excellent start!
like it
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