The Poem in My Pocket
Yesterday was “Poem in Your Pocket” Day, and I was fortunate to be invited by David Horowitz to read poems with four other poets at the Edmonds Bookshop, where I sold four books, and bought two.
Here’s a poem for your pocket from Jane Kenyon:
The Thimble
I found a silver thimble
on the humusy floor of the woodshed,
neither large nor small, the open end
bent oval by the wood’s weight,
or because the woman who wore it
shaped it to fit her finger.
Its decorative border of leaves, graceful
and regular, like the edge of acanthus
on the tin ceiling at church…
repeating itself over our heads while we speak in unison
words the wearer must have spoken.
(I found the image at http://www.etsy.com/listing/56781815/simons-sterling-silver-victorian-thimble)
It’s been a week of wounds, great and small, which somehow makes the idea of retrieving this artifact from under a woodpile additionally comforting. My uncle died on Saturday after a long illness, a friend wrote to me about her grandbaby’s unexpected death. Boston. Waco. Everything in between.
Over at Wait! I have a Blog?! Kathleen Kirk put up a poem yesterday for Boston. I hope you will have a chance to drop by.
I love the thimble, in all its ripplings….
Me too.
HI Bethany I just learned how to leave a message, it was so simple once I opened my eyes. Back to the goat? Are you kidding? Did he get his ears cropped and become a horse and change colors? I get fixated on things like this. Love The Froglady
You make me smile. The goat was always a goat, one of the many Ellen has rescued and taken pictures of over the years. A picture of the foal would have made more sense for that post.