Join the Poetry Friday round-up with Keri at Keri Recommends
Last week Michelle Barnes interviewed Douglas Florian who challenged poets to write a poem about nothing. On Saturday, I had a bunch of nothing much going on and I read a poem by Barbara Crooker that was about nothing and the joy of a day when nothing goes wrong. I stole a line and off I went.
with a borrowed line from Barbara Crooker, “Ordinary Life” in The Woman in this Poem selected by Georgia Heard.
This was a day when nothing happened.
I swept the floor.
Leaves piled with swirly
dust–not many left on trees
this winter day, but the sun
shone through a break in the clouds
making my gathering glisten.
I stopped to switch laundry
pulled long sleeves from the dryer.
Soft warmth brushed my cheek.
View from my kitchen window, by Margaret Simon
The dryer hummed a rhythm.
Time enough for another cup of coffee,
another deep breath of nothing happening.
I promised God to be present.
He said, “It’s all in the way you look at things.”
So I swept
words into a small pile
on a page
where nothing much was happening.
–Margaret Simon
Reflections on the Teche 