Poetry is as poetry does

My friend Charles says that everything in the world is either prose or poetry. He, of course, knows loads of Wordsworth by heart. My problem is that I think I am mostly prose, wishing always to be poetry. What I mean is, I am a dreadful snob with a terrible memory. That kind of hypocrisy cracks me up.

So, we have got the food thing down. We have made the consciousness shift, and will not, can not change. Understanding our place in the food chain is so essential and obvious that reverting now would be like giving up on recycling. There is no way. This commitment is still only slightly satisfying though. I still have only a vague idea of where my clothes come from- and few viable alternatives to sustainable articles. I have no idea how my phone or this computer works, and much of the labor and materials that went into my house is completely lost on me. (How DO they make paint? How DOES electricity work?) And my car- no idea. So, I move into the poetry of things, because inevitably my prose soapbox gets kicked out from under me and there I hang.

My rants are mostly internal. My life holds a lot of time to think, and so it becomes essential that I come to peace with my thoughts. Poetry is often that vessel. As T.S. Eliot said, Poetry" may make us... a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves."

And so, with all of the discombobulated parts of this life, grab a hold of its poetry- the gift of food, the magical light of autumn, the goofiness of your dog. Perfume. The preciousness of rain. Too many apple pies and too few stars. The prose is so important, but don't forget the poetry.

In the mean time, you should know that the saffron is blooming.