How is it that it’s not even 7:30 and I’m exhausted?

Three beautiful things from the last week:

1. Saturday’s weather was comparable to late April in New England — utterly lovely — and I spent most of the day out enjoying it.

2. While we were eating lunch on Saturday, I looked out the window to notice that the little tree just in front of the restaurant was covered in orchid-colored flowers.

3. Knowing that tomorrow is Friday and that I can go home for the weekend as soon as my meeting ends at 2 p.m.

Drawing on the previous post, I think that blog poetry readers need to get more involved. So, I’m also offering a read-aloud poem for you. Don’t read it silently. This is one that begs to be read out loud — to have your tongue twist around the words, sensually caressing each syllable. It makes a difference; trust me, your officemate or your cat (or both) would love to hear your rendition.

Ode to American English
~ Barbara Hamby

I was missing English one day, American, really,
   with its pill-popping Hungarian goulash of everything
from Anglo-Saxon to Zulu, because British English
   is not the same, if the paperback dictionary
I bought at Brentano’s on the Avenue de l’Opéra
   is any indication, too cultured by half. Oh, the English
know their dahlias, but what about doowop, donuts,
   Dick Tracy, Tricky Dick? With their elegant Oxfordian
accents, how could they understand my yearning for the hotrod,
   hotdog, hot flash vocabulary of the U. S. of A.,
the fragmented fandango of Dagwood’s everyday flattening
   of Mr. Beasley on the sidewalk, fetuses floating
on billboards, drive-by monster hip-hop stereos shaking
   the windows of my dining room like a 7.5 earthquake,
Ebonics, Spanglish, “you know” used as comma and period,
   the inability of 90% of the population to get the present perfect:
I have went, I have saw, I have tooken Jesus into my heart,
   the battle cry of the Bible Belt, but no one uses
the King James anymore, only plain-speak versions,
   in which Jesus, raising Lazarus from the dead, says,
“Dude, wake up,” and the L-man bolts up like a B-movie
   mummy. “Whoa, I was toasted.” Yes, ma’am,
I miss the mongrel plentitude of American English, its fall-guy,
   rat-terrier, dog-pound neologisms, the bomb of it all,
the rushing River Jordan backwoods mutability of it, the low-rider,
   boom-box cruise of it, from New Joisey to Ha-wah-ya
with its sly dog, malasada-scarfing beach blanket lingo
   to the ubiquitous Valley Girl’s like-like stuttering,
shopaholic rant. I miss its quotidian beauty, its querulous
   back-biting righteous indignation, its preening rotgut
flag-waving cowardice. Suffering Succotash, sputters
   Sylvester the Cat; sine die, say the pork-bellied legislators
of the swamps and plains. I miss all those guys, their Tweety-bird
   resilience, their Doris Day optimism, the candid unguent
of utter unhappiness on every channel, the midnight televangelist
   euphoric stew, the junk mail, voice mail vernacular.
On every boulevard and rue I miss the Tarzan cry of Johnny
   Weismueller, Johnny Cash, Johnny B. Goode,
and all the smart-talking, gum-snapping hard-girl dialogue,
   finger-popping x-rated street talk, sports babble,
Cheetoes, Cheerios, chili dog diatribes. Yeah, I miss them all,
   sitting here on my sidewalk throne sipping champagne
verses lined up like hearses, metaphors juking, nouns zipping
   in my head like Corvettes on Dexadrine, French verbs
slitting my throat, yearning for James Dean to jump my curb.

Reya invited bloggers to join her in her annual poetry reading.

This is the poem I chose:

A Physics
~ Heather McHugh

When you get down to it, Earth
has our own great ranges
of feeling — Rocky, Smoky, Blue —
and a heart that can melt stones.

The still pools fill with sky,
as if aloof, and we have eyes
for all of this — and more, for Earth’s
reminding moon. We too are ruled

by such attractions — spun and swaddled,
rocked and lent a light. We run
our clocks on wheels, our trains
on time. But all the while we want

to love each other endlessly — not only for
a hundred years, not only six feet up and down.
We want the suns and moons of silver
in ourselves, not only counted coins in a cup. The whole

idea of love was not to fall. And neither was
the whole idea of God. We put him well
above ourselves, because we meant,
in time, to measure up.

While I really liked the word play she uses throughout this poem, it’s really the last stanza that makes this a poem for the ages.