Have I ever mentioned how much I love poetry?
I didn’t used to love poetry, not when it was set in front of me in school with a charge to dissect the words and diagnose the exact meaning.
If I’m ever in charge of the universe, I will forbid English teachers from having students analyze poems. In fact, I’ll take poems right out of English class and stick them, instead, in the vending machines next to all of the other indulgent treats where they belong.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. Don’t try to figure it out; there’s nothing to figure out. Just enjoy the words.
The Patience of Ordinary Things
by Pat Schneider
It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?
Oh. My. Goodness.
That’s way better than a Snickers bar, fo sho. Dude, can you loan me seventy-five cents? I’m totally craving another poem.
