Interoffice Mail

Here is the contents of this morning's mail.

--IRB approval for a study I'm managing
--The Chronicle of Higher Education
--this poem:

Petals in the Dirt
Ellen Dore Watson

Your words circle, mine batter.  You're a ramp, I have
no wheels.  The kid who gets the brunt
of our love asks us not to bicker.  Think
of all the people who have lost their right
hands!  The friend who says: Hug me twice,
it could be a while till the next body
I can touch.  Then there's the man who claims he wants
steady, needs steady, but each woman's a lake
he's big enough to swallow.  How will hunger like that
ever learn to use a napkin?  When you bring me
tenderness, it looks like one more thing
I don't have time for.  Maybe when it comes
to love, the happily long-married are the biggest
fools.  I'm fervent but off-and-on about my roses
--how many of us are delirious when the twenty-sixth
blossom does its gorgeous thing?  I wonder
if when I get home those petals will still be
luminous and melting in the dirt.  I'm thinking
maybe I need them.  I'm saying what would I do
without your mouth?

--from This Sharpening

In between the bureaucratic and the informational, a reminder to live.  More workplaces should have a poetry center to send random beauty through interoffice mail, even if it results in 9 am weeping at administrative desks.

Comments

[Kat with a K]

Oh, wow. I've never read her before, but I'll definitely have to look for one of her books. And I wish they'd let me start a poetry center at my workplace.

(And for some reason, it scares me that Chron of Higher Ed has chronicle.com. It makes them sound... way too powerful.)

[Lucia]

It's gonna take me a while to digest this one. The biggest fool, eh? Maybe, but a happy one.

[Martha]

That's a great poem. Thanks for sharing!

[Lee Ann]

I'm not sure if I've mentioned how much I love you lately, but I do. You have no idea how many levels this poem hits. Or maybe you do have an idea, since you were crying at 9am and now I'm crying too.

I think I need to go tell my husband something pretty damned important. Thank you, Cate.

[amysue]

Now I'm a little weepy....what a lovely poem. I've bookmarked the link to the daily poem - I love poetry and have not been getting regualr exposure.

Thank you!

[JoVE]

Nice mail. good mix. The mission of your poetry centre sounds fab. I think that maybe despite some initial hiccups this is a good employer.

Some of the homeschooling blogs I read participate in Poetry Friday. Not that you need more in your blogroll but you might want to think about adding one just for Fridays.

[Stacie]

Thank you for sharing that. It was wonderful.

[Judi]

Woo HOO!!! Congratulations on the IRB approval, I KNOW how hard that hurdle is to clear. Way to go, girl.

Hope things are going well on the home front too.

[Carole]

Dude. You get way better mail than I do.

[Julia]

Thank you for sharing the poem, it's beautiful. But not in a Disney movie way, a very real way.

[Ruth]

Thank-you for sharing that poem - it really speaks to where I've been at lately. With all the loss and chaos and paring down, I realize that all I really treasure is my own little corner of "us" - 11 years tomorrow, and still genuinely, deeply in love.

You also reminded me that I need more poetry in my life!

[Sneaksleep]

Thank you for that poem. So much. Some of the most famous teachers in Buddhism were regarded as "fools." Taz brought me roses last night "just because." I think I need to leave work early today...

[LauraJ]

Thanks for the poem. I sent it onto Garrison Keillor, who collects good poems and I figure the poet can use any publicity she can get.

[lanea]

Ok, I was just going to pop in with a quick nice-to-meet-cha-at-Rhinebeck, and then you go and have poetry up on your last post. And it's good poetry. And I'm obsessed with poetry. And and and. Even nicer to meet cha. (says the daugher of a bradley-teaching breastfeeding-advocate hippie extraordinaire, who is taking a break from adding content to a Department of Education website)