The in-house poet

I’ll be dedicating the “poetry” category of this blog to my mother, and will feature her amateur poetry of the past 60 years or so. My mom lives with us, so she’s the in-house poet. She celebrates her 78th birthday this month, and in her honor we’ll have a March Madness of poetry.

I’m a terrible poet, and can barely judge good poetry, but I hope I choose some that will brighten your day. Here’s Mom by an abandoned house down the lane from where we live. I took this picture two weeks ago, and ironically, there’s an enormous bulldozer out there as I write, tearing that old house down to make room for a hay shed. A subtle lesson to enjoy the old, weathered, beautiful things while you can.

The Poet

A Poet is a man who tries
To cut the universe down to size
But yet retain the sense of space
While putting it in a certain place.
A poet with a little verse
Captures and giftwraps the universe.

A poet is a man who sees
The enchanted forest in the trees.
He sees the bird of happiness fly
In the land where people do not die.
These things and more the poet doth tell
In a poem that fits in a little nutshell.

A poet is a man who stores
Ideas in his dresser drawers.
With words he combs his tangled hair
And starts the day with “Change,” “Compare.”
And when the words begin to fuse
The poet melts into the Muse.

B.P. Daniel (1929 – )