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The Stand Still (a Mary Oliver Copy Change)

Rosemerry Wahtolha Trommer once told me if it’s true, the opposite is also true. That inspired me to try this take on Mary Oliver’s The Journey. Enjoy! THE STAND STILL Everyday you really don’t know what you have to do and you stop, though the voices within you keep whispering their good advice— Though part of the house ceases to tremble, and you feel the new-nothing tug at your spine. “Break your death!” Each voice exhales. But you don’t move. You don’t know what you have to do though the water seeps with all its twinkling toes through the very foundations. Though their joy is delighting. It is not yet late enough, and a calm day and your chair, empty of fallen leaves and sand. And leap by leap, as you bring your voices in closer, the stars soften their burn over the cloudless clear and there is the oldest voice there ever was which impulsively you mistake as your own that abandons you as you stay further and further away from the world, uncertain about doing the many things you could...
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I LOVE A POET

  I LOVE A POET who swears. Not all the time, and pretty much only  the women ones. There is something so endearing about a woman facing the storm we call life and being reduced  to the incomparable catch all phrase “Shit.”
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READ YOUR TEACHERS’ WORK

  READ YOUR TEACHERS’ WORK I was today-years-old give or take a sleep or two when I realized I should go back and read my teachers’ work. Volumes of their poetry float about my room, cobwebs in the corners let alone for nearly a year now. But how to get through the first one whose heartbreak makes me so jealous I could spit? Or the second whose luckless lot has been spun so sharply the book burns  my finger tips with every paging turn?  Don’t get me started on the third whose written every poem there is inside me. Every single one, especially those I am too afraid to write. No other poetry is more pressing than that of my teachers, but these old masters spare no sugar. Every word and not word is salt.
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Copy Change I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman

 Find his original here Copy Change of Walt Whitman’s I hear America Singing I hear the US singing, the varied rhythms I hear of those teachers, each one singing theirs as it should be          blithe and strong The cleaning ladies singing theirs as they sort out surfaces or linens The garbage takers singing as they make ready for work, or leave off work The small business owner singing what belongs to her in her shop, the cashier singing at her station. The dry-waller singing as they reach for their instruments, the roofers singing as they sheathe theirs. The hygienist's song, the Door Dasher on their way in the morning, or at noon intermission, or at sundown.  The delicious singing of childcare workers, or of a young mother at work, or an old wife drying and folding. Each singing what belongs to them and none else The day what belongs to the day—at night      a party of neighbors gather               ...
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Hello, Bee

  Hello, bee.  Walking winding black asphalt up a hill that leads down to a grave, I listened and read graffiti that said "Fatty Fetty Homeless  Bitches" with a heart at the end.  I listened, and my childhood best friend told me parts of the story of who she’s become. We discussed price tags and humility, and family, tender family And when it came time to say goodbye I said “I miss you” and tears filled my eyes “I’ll see you soon,” she said, both of us knowing not soon enough.  I sat down in a rocker that’s spent a year by my dirt driveway And I wept, and wept and wept,  Until  my hands were wet with tears.  What about, I couldn't tell you, something like loneliness, death, fear. That's when the bee came over rested on my fingernail slurped up all my suck And followed me back toward the house When I decided I'd had enough.  So imagine my astonishment When this morning,  screen door closed,  a gaping hole still there right where my y...
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