Display Case in Honor of April is National Poetry Month at Huntingdon Valley Library - Poem: Black Friday

 Shading my eyes from the sun, I took a picture of the HV Library.

 Here's the completed Display Case. A friend of mine was sposed to help me, but she was unavailable.

The first thing I did was find one of those rolling "Kik-Stools" to reach the high shelf.



Yikes! Hard to do but necessary. When I was in fourth grade I broke my ankle by jumping down 9 steps, so my left leg is the weaker, I learned again today.

Teeter-teeter-teeter.

Did all the prep work at home. Looked at the PDF of The Compass and selected a variety of poetry.

I wanted the poems to be short and good.

I told Scott I'd be there all afternoon, but it took less than an hour.

Martha Hunter's "Born Too Soon" about the late Robin Williams. Martha, I wrote, put our feelings of sadness about his death into a moving poem.

Walt Whitman. I really enjoyed writing blurbs about each entry. Click to enlarge.

 "Pointing Toward the Moon" by Bill Wunder. My description read that his book "Pointing Toward the Moon" was about the Vietnam War. He still writes poetry, of course, b/c once you're stung by the poetry bug, it's a lifelong pursuit.

Also wrote that if you attend a poetry reading, buy the poet's book and have him or her autograph it. Who knows? One day you may write your own poetry book, like Allan Heller below. 

 Poems can be surprising, I wrote atop Allan Heller's poem "The White Death." Yes, the man shoveling his snow, drops dead at the end of the poem. I tucked his "Graveyard Verses" beside it.

In 2011, our Coffeeshop Writers' Group published "Icing on the Cake," a poetry journal. I flipped it open and up came three poems by Elijah Pringle III. "Good stuff," as Floyd B Johnson would say.

 "Remember the wrath of Hurricane Sandy," I wrote. One poet wrote about it, from the point of view of a Tree.

Next to "Death of a Tree" is "Any Spare Change?" .... outside our church, writes David Subacchi of the UK. His lovely poem gave the Display Case an international flavor. Read more from my new Facebook friend.

Here's Lynn Levin, who will be teaching a free class at this library next week. I chose "And Then," one of three or four poems by Lynn in The Compass.

The vase is one of many decorations I brought to the library. It was a gift from one of our French exchange students when Sarah went to Abington Friends School.

I also sprinkled rocks and shells in the case. I would have liked to have dried flowers - Kremp gave us a donation when we did the Abington Library Display Case a couple years ago - but I simply did not have the time.

Robert Frost, I wrote, was once the most famous poet in America. Perhaps you've read the lines "The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have miles to go before I sleep, and promises to keep.

Hmm, I wonder what it means." Teaching via the Socratic method.

 Yes, we write on napkins, I wrote. (Esp. if you're a napkin thief like I am.)  I wrote the start of The Raven, crossing out words and fixing them. Gathered these pine cones from Scott's yard.

This poetry case is brought to you by New Directions Support Group of Abington and Willow Grove, PA.

Did you know, I wrote, that many poets suffer from mental illness. The deep feelings of people with depression or bipolar d/o push them into writing striking and dramatic poetry.

I also had a List of Resources - Should you care to pursue poetry - which the librarian made copies of on colored paper.

Just got word today that one of my poems will be published on November 30, 2015. I had no idea who E S. Wynn was... the editor of Leaves of Ink, an online lit mag, but my serotonin went wild when I read the words,

Hey Ruth!

Your poem was just accepted into Leaves of Ink and will appear on the front page on the following date: 11/30/15! Congratulations!

BLACK FRIDAY

I hope this last day of November

finds you well

Once the body learns how to make

cancer cells, her oncologist told her,

they look for hidden opportunities.

There’s no going back.

Like a child learning to read.

If only the abnormal cells were on the surface

we could pick them off, or take

an X-Acto Blade in the dead of night

Worry-Time, and slice them off

like bits of dried egg

under the reading lamp.

Nothing distracts like shopping,

America’s most perfect sport.

Only yesterday I went to Marshall’s

whispering “You’re looking not buying.

You’re looking not buying.”

When I came home I faced

my mortality once again. The new

credit card – the security code

reads “888” - expires in four years,

just in time for my seventy-second

birthday.

The words look hideous to me

but some day I’ll count that “young.”

Does it ever cross your mind,

as it does mine, from dawn to dusk

that some day they’ll all be dead.

Every last one of them,

wept for,

buried, cremated, bodies given to science,

as a new generation begins the rhyme all

over again.

Come with me and stand by the window.

The leaves on the maple are withered and shrunk,

dangling like dry tea bags, ready to drop.

Swirls of branches I never noticed

quiver in the cold. They loop round

creating a vacuum in the sky

were I a painter I’d splash it

onto a canvas. I knew a sculptor

once, who said a sculpture is

a tree in disguise.

The cancer that killed him

was in his stomach.

I have peeked out my window

once again.

Is it fair to say

the leaves are waving to me?

They are. They are.

Thing is,

are they waving hello

or goodbye?