The Poetry Marathon

“I’ll do it tomorrow,” I said.

“No, you won’t,” she said.

“Yes, I will.” “No, you won’t.”

“I always do!” “You never do!”

“You said that yesterday.”

“”Yes I did.”

“But today is today NOT tomorrow! Tomorrow is tomorrow!”

“Are we clear?”

So you really thought I had gone away?

I took your kid’s education, that Fourth of July picnic you loved so much and Grandma from the nursing home.

Gone away?

I destroyed businesses, put people out of work and elected a President.

Gone away?

You wore your masks, practiced your social distancing and even discovered soap and water. You hurried a vaccine that only God knows the side effects. Yes, you’re smiling now, but am I really gone away or just

Waiting?

I looked up and saw what needed to be done, the pruning, the weeding and the raking.

I looked back down and thought it must be done, the pruning, the weeding and the raking.

I looked back up and saw that it had been done, the pruning, the weeding and the raking.

I looked back down and knew

The Mexicans

The pruning, the weeding and the raking.

Sandburg

I’m Carl Sandburg, a poet.

I’m not T.S. Eliot. If you want Rhyme, I haven’t got the time. But if you want Stackers of Wheat, Players of Railroads, Brawny Shoulders or Hog Butcher for the World, I give you “Chicago.”

I’m not Bobby Frost. If you want Rhyme, I haven’t got the time. But if you want a Hunky sweeping hog blood for a dollar seventy cents a day, a three year old daughter in a cold white coffin or a family full sorrow, I give you ” The Right to Grief.”

I’m Carl Sandburg, a poet.

If you want Rhyme, I haven’t got the time.