Three Blessings
(after Alicia Ostriker)
To be blessed
said the poet
is to find a poem
that is not your poem
from which you can
steal things
to make into
your own things
To be blessed
said the termite
is to find wood
that is not your wood
into which you
can borough and breed
until the world collapses
right around the humans
To be blessed
said the atom
is to have a structure
made up of particles
protons neutrons electrons
all doing their business
in and outside
of a nucleus that
these termites and poets
are dying to split
michael jarmer 
I love this. The mischievousness of it all. Thank you. Tempted to steal from it, poet that I am. haha. Really lovely
Michael, I’ve been listening in as usual, and have been meaning to reply even as I fail, again, to keep up with your inspiring role-modeling productivity.
Really like this latest one, “Three blessings.” And not just because it reminds me how sluggish I am about metaphor. 2. Of course I remember well our mutual sonneteering a year ago, still a source of energy for me. And your poem yesterday took me immediately (all senses) back to last year’s poem about the soggy, sad, beautiful camping trip with your brother-in-law. I’m sorry his life ended, sorry for your family and of course him. But important, though easy for me in this case, to say: Michael, poetry LASTS. That year-apart connection hit me hard. 3. On a somewhat different plane, you also came to mind – bear with me here – because I THINK you are the one who urged me to read Jane Smiley’s gobsmacking rant about Huckleberry Finn and (versus?) Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I’d never heard that perspective. This month, I decided to reread HF (after decades) in preparation for reading Percival Everett’s new James, a retelling of the FF story from Jim’s point of view. I’m about a third of the way into HF, and already am recalibrating my view of the novel – toward a more mixed takeaway. Probably I’ll wind up with some kind of muddled middle ground perspective, drawing from all of them: Twain, Stowe, Smiley, Everett. That’s what I do – borrow and steal from everywhere. Hey, I’m an American Studies major who fell into journalism. It’s a habit.
Most important, Michael, congratulations and keep ’em coming. All best from across the country in Maine, where April brought us 8 inches of mashed potatoes snowfall yesterday.
Cheers,
Don
Don! So good to hear from you. I’ve been thinking about you, as well, as I embarked on another year of forced creativity time. I love these things. Just that it exists, and that I have time for it, has becomes motivation in and of itself. No one’s holding my feet to the fire, so to speak, but I continue anyway following that thread! Last year’s collaborative correspondence was truly a gift. I’d love to do more of that, April or no. Thanks for mentioning this James novel. Must take a look. Yeah, I’m glad you read the Smiley. I can never see Huck the same way again. But there’s nothing wrong with muddled middle ground. That’s where we live, mostly–except not in politics. Not now, anyway. Thanks for the note, friend.