Poetry Friday - Birthdays

     It's Poetry Friday, and Laura Purdie Salas is hosting HERE on her website! Despite various challenges, Laura's also sharing her new book, Flurry, Float, and Fly!, coming out next week, plus a villanelle reminding us of "The Sounds of Winter". It's especially nice since we in Colorado have heard almost none of them. They are late to the winter party!  Be sure to drop by to see all she is sharing, and check others who are sharing, too.    Thanks for hosting today, Laura!

          My family seems to have a slide of birthdays, from April to this month, when my daughter has a big birthday next week! 

                        My husband's birthday was also this month!

          Really, the reason I shared the above is to celebrate birthdays, and this time, my daughter's. But even as I have had many, I still look forward to each one, appreciate the birthday wishes, and consider the day MY special day. I hope you do as well. 

          This began as I wrote above, but also with a poem that feels quite serendipitous because this week, it literally fell out of a book I was looking through, "yes", by Ogden Nash. I just found the book at the used bookstore where I volunteer, and knew I would love his humor, lately a needed boost, right?

         Happy Birthday, with smiles to each of you, no matter how long it will be until your next one! 🎂

Poetry Friday - Musings On Our World

Karen Eastlund, with whom I've had a great time with at Highlights, is hosting today on Poetry Karen's Got A Blog! Since most of us are not going much of anywhere these days, Karen is sharing a Norwegian memory from her dad for Father's Day and a poem votes as the "finest Norweigian poem of all time." Wow, that's quite an honor. Thanks, Karen!


I'm becoming more political every day, and can't seem to stop more learning about candidates, policies, and reading books that help me know about #ownvoices for #blacklivesmatter and other groups left out because of who they happen to be. 

           Last Monday, FYI, I posted a review of the new poetry book, Woke - A Young Poet's Call to Justice. You can find it here. Don't miss reading this book!

This week I voted and am working to get people registered through sending postcards. It's so easy in Colorado. We've voted by mail since 2013 and according to some news sources, it's also cheaper! There are drop-off stations everywhere or one can use postage to mail the ballot in, too. 

         I also realize that sometimes one needs to laugh, and this week a book of Ogden Nash's Beastly Poetry was donated to the used bookstore where I volunteer. And it was full of chuckles and smiles for me. Wouldn't it be the most fun to read what he would write in our world today?

The Cow

The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other, milk.

The Duck

Behold the duck.
It does not cluck.
A cluck it lacks.
It quacks.
It is specially fond
of a puddle or pond.
When it dines or sups,
It bottoms ups.

       He wrote of all kinds of creatures but touched today's world after all when toward the end I found


The Germ

A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my poppet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.



        I'm taking a break for July, wishing all of you a good month of summer wherever you might land!