My Huckleberry Friend

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. …Robert Frost

 

White buds close to ground

Bright chirping above my head

Spring, despite cold hands

 

Back in the day when I thought poetry had to rhyme I wrote notebooks full of mostly religious verse.  Those pages got tossed during some move or spring cleaning.  What I do still have is my first book of poems, a family heirloom copyright 1918.  As I read the book today, few of the poems are good or even make sense.  Many are racist, certainly sexist, and the pictures and words are often scary.  They are, however, typical for the time. 

Between Mother Goose and Shakespeare were the poetic and often meaningful lyrics of songs that reflect the sentiment, fashion, charm, and issues of the day.  For every ‘One-Eyed, One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater’ there is a ‘Let It Be;’ for a ‘Grandma Got Run Over By Reindeer,’ a ‘Oh, Holy Night.’  It is that poetry we have no trouble memorizing and talking about and that today’s generations compose and post.

April is Poetry Month, which is what brought this to mind.  I may not know any rap, let alone know it by heart, but I have heard from twenty-somethings and younger that some of it is as fun as ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,’ that some of today’s lyricists write things as true as ‘Oh What a Beautiful Morning,’ as inspirational as ‘Climb Every Mountain’ or, for me, as wistful as ‘Moon River’ where two drifters are ‘off to see the world, there’s such a lot of world to see.  We’re after that same rainbow’s end, waitin’ round the bend, my huckleberry friend….’

What’s your favorite form of poetry, poem, lyric, or poet?  May you find some room for musing on the poetry in your life sometime this month.

Marilyn