The Gift of a Poem!

I can't think of anything much better than getting a poem like this from a friend. Isabel Zuber, poet and novelist, and a friend I've had since 1977, emailed this today. She really liked the photo of me with one booted foot on the woodpile from an earlier post, I can't remember which. I didn't suspect it would inspire a poem! As for Byron, he has been a pest lately. And he bounds around on my husband's chair, disturbing the stacks of bills, etc., etc., that lie on the lamp table beside it, and he bounds around on the sofa, and on the bed. As for the barley soup, lately I've been making lentil soup, though I have nothing against barley.

Maybe we should all try writing poems to our friends. It's better than sending flowers. And more lasting. Don't we all want to be found beautiful by our friends? And don't we also find them beautiful?

I'll be writing a poem back to Isabel. What a lot we would miss without friends like Isabel in our lives.






For Kay

Our beautiful poet
is out behind her house
in her black boots, her big
red beads and a dress to match.

She has one foot on her woodpile.
Her blue clothes line waits
and inside on the stove
a big pot of barley soup bubbles.

And she has a kind, indulgent
smile for all those whose hands
have not felt the rough bark
on logs carried in to the fire,

who have never snapped a bean
or a clothes pin and who don't
have a small bushy black dog
named Byron to bound around

in the backyard. What
a lot they have missed!