In Honor of National Poetry Month

I have been remiss this month in not mentioning that April is National Poetry Month.  I spent some time reading and writing poetry this month and I participated in National Poem in your Pocket Day which was April 14th by passing out a poem by Pat Schneider which I will post at the end.

I also wrote a villanelle for a friend who has terminal cancer.  I wrote the villanelle using lines from his caring bridge website where people expressed their love and heartbreak and memories.  This site and the sentiments it generated created so many wonderful lines that it prompted me to create a found poem for my friend which I mailed to him.  Here are a few stanzas:

From this day forward every morning

at some point between 7:00 - 8:00 a.m and 9:00 - 10:00 a.m.

I will hold you in my heart and thoughts.

Your openness to this most current process

The next stage in your life journey

Will take you from this day forward every morning

I don’t understand why the powers that be let nasty people walk this earth

and yet take away the beautiful people.

this thought I will hold in my heart and thoughts

I'd love to hear how you celebrated National Poetry Month?  Did you read poetry?  Write poetry? Share poetry?  Find poetry?  Here is the poem in your pocket that I promised.  Pat Schneider is a favorite of mine.

The Patience of Ordinary Things
It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they're supposed to be.
I've been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?