Category: Friday Poems

NYC Library

NYC Library

The air is moist with knowledge,

  With hundred year old thoughts,

With dreams read and created and 

  Drunk down in droughts.

An edifice of bindings encase table and chair,

  Books barely opened as data flys through the air.

Laptops lie open,

  Books lie entombed,

    Still few words are spoken

      In the gentle quiet of

        The third floor reading room.

The ghosts of the past

  Give the present a kiss

As I wonder what’s been lost 

  In our media bliss.

November 25, 2019

A Child’s Education And A Poem For Fall

Malachi and Sonora enjoying a cool fall day.
Malachi and Sonora enjoying a cool fall day.

Our two kids have enjoyed the opportunity to be home schooled these past two years.  My wife does a fantastic job and while our homeschooling looks very little like a traditional classroom, the kids are having fun learning.

One of the great things about home schooling is the ability to identify our kids passions, dreams and strengths and then spend more time focusing on them.  There are no bells telling them it is time to move on if they are in the middle of a project or are caught up in the heart of a chapter of a good book.

Malachi is all about story.  He loves stories – both reading them and writing them.  His love for writing has tumbled over into poetry as well.

Poetry is such a great outlet for beginning writers – it’s shorter, grammar matters less and it’s fun.

Today Malachi wrote a poem and I thought I’d share it.  As the leaves begin to fall and the temperatures drop, he naturally chose to write about fall.  Enjoy.

——————–

Leaves

will fall one by one

surely now fall

has come.

Grass will die

and flowers fade.

Green to brown and

crumple down.

The golden corn

swept away.

Winter comes

around the bend.

————

October 2013

Parker Wagons at Harvest

Parker Wagons at Harvest

The Parker’s metal

sides bulge

like fat pigs

gorged on grain.

The tractor strains

a mighty heave,

wagons ease from soft

end rows.

A dusty country

road welcomes

this swaying

train,

a tractor and two wagons –

green wagons,

green tractor

like spring,

like hope.

Toward home

the tractor goes,

to the auger,

to the bin,

to the thought just

months away

of the planting once

again.

——————

October 2013

Box Cars in Waiting

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Do they tire of ceaseless sitting,

of knowing their created purpose –

hauling loads –

yet remaining unused, unmoved,

unhitched from the engine that will move them?

Have they seen the schedule,

the timetable of upcoming action?

And do they know – in their waiting –

the calling that awaits?

Waiting without knowing –

a most difficult task.

4/22/2013

image

Friday Poems: Technology

We have been in the process of moving into our new home in Freeman, South Dakota and in that process have unpacked countless boxes and bags, some of which were packed over five years ago.  It has led to more than a few interesting discoveries, one of which was a yellow piece of legal paper with a poem scribbled on it.

I believe I wrote it sometime between 2002 and 2004 while we were living in the Twin Cities.  I find it interesting as it reflects my long-standing and nuanced distrust of technology and innovation.  It is the tension I still live in and in fact, live in now more than ever as I work to craft a business based on technology and the innovation that has given us the world-wide web in all of its fullness.

– – – – – – – – – –

It has come

    to save us from

the mundane tasks 

    of paper and pen.

 

Instead of letters 

    of time and of thought,

emails are sent

    and emails are caught.

 

Instead of visits

    within sight of a friend,

chat rooms entice us

    to a life of pretend.

 

Life will be better

    is the thought of the day

as technology and innovation chase us

    into the grave.