On the poetry meme

I've been reading the various responses to the poetry memes, since first discovering the meme on Dorothy W.'s Of Books and Bicycles last Friday. When I mentioned it on my post, I said I was thinking about playing, but nearly a week later, all I've done is read other people's - starting with Cam -- her reasons for creating the meme and her answers.

My biggest frustration came yesterday, when after writing 3 lengthy comments on Lotus Reads (we loved some of the same poems--I always have something to say about that), some "scheduled maintenance" wiped it out. Only on the 3rd attempt did I get the explanation and give up.

So this morning I'm still not following through with my own answers. This post is already too long, and I want to share a favorite poem.

Valentine for Ernest Mann
by Naomi Shihab Nye

You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter and say, "I’ll take two"
and expect it to handed back to you on a shiny plate.

Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, "Here’s my address,write me a poem,"
deserves something in reply.
So I’ll tell a secret instead: poems hide.
In the bottoms of our shoes, they are sleeping.
They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up.What we have to do is
live in a way that lets us find them.

Once I knew a man who gave his wife two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she was crying.
"I thought they had such beautiful eyes."
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.