Poetry Workshop on Odes stars Percy Bysshe Shelly, John Keats and Pindar - Visit from Donna - Poem: Ode to our Poetry Workshop

 Our teacher Lynn Levin teaches at University of Pennsylvania and Drexel.

I brought in flowers from Scott's garden. Sweet-smelling purple hyacinth and yellow daffodils. And yes, we will also be reading Odes by William Wordsworth.

Wordsworth and the likes of Shelley, Byron and Keats thought of Nature as god. I like that, even though I frequently pray. Mostly thanking the Whomever when good things happen to me. Or, when wishing for something really important.

Okay, I just made a wish. Let's see if it's granted.

Yes! A good song on WXPN.

There were about 9 people in our class.

At the end I asked if anyone wanted my flowers. Eileen took them home in my Giant unsalted peanuts jar.

I kept some hyacinth for myself.

On Facebook, a woman commented on the photos of Carl Yeager, who, of course, did the cover of our Compass, and said, How do you find beauty in so many things?

C'mon lady! Do you live in a cellar?

"Red dirt girl" from Emmylou Harris, said David Dye from the World Cafe about that nice song.

My sister Donna called me late last nite.

Is my bed ready? she asked.

It will be, I said.

My client "Karen" was coming over.

Donna said she'd be sure to listen to our conversation through a glass on the floor.

While Karen I were talking, and Donna was upstairs in my bed on her iPad, an awful thing happened.

Ruth, whispered Karen, there's a mouse at the bottom of your step.

I got up and there he was, a cute little bugger.

We opened up the front door and within 10 minutes he had scampered outside.

Whew!

Twenty minutes later another one appeared. As Donna said, when there's one there's more.

SCOTT! Where are you with your traps?

Donna shared two fantastic HBO docu's with me. Here are some pix from a Gloria Vanderbilt documentary starring her son, Anderson Cooper.

AND a doc of Nora Ephron, who shocked everyone by dying.

"Everything is Copy" - 2015 - was terrific.

Photos please:

Donna loves my omelets. She made Maxwell House coffee, which I sipped on, but it was cold. No good cold!

I had an appt with Victor Ghantous my nephrologist who always gives me a good report for my 5-yo kidney.

I always ask him what's new? Stem cells, he said, are being used to create a new kidney. Should be available in a dozen years or so.

As he was running late, I went outside and did some walking. Also did various exercises in the inner waiting room.

Antsy? he asked me. NO, just using the opportunity to exercise instead of sitting there wasting time.

As a writer, I couldn't help but listen to a man's conversation in an adjoining waiting room. I'd never heard anyone use such vile language. I jotted it down in a tiny notebook that Grace Catherine, my 5-yo g-daughter, had written in.

Documentary "Nothing Left Unsaid."  Good job, Anderson!

 Ninety-four years old. 

 Anderson Cooper "parents' his mother.

This is her son from Leopold Stokowski!!!  Who knew?

She was an absentee mom.

Gloria is a really talented painter. Hey, maybe I'll invite her to our Arts Festival in May.

 Her mom.

 NORA EPHRON

 Her wonderful second husband, Nick Pileggi.

 Son Jason Bernstein.

Cute friend.

Another cute friend.

She and womanizer Carl Bernstein, who had an affair while she was 7 months pregnant, made up.



ODE TO OUR POETRY WORKSHOP

Raven-haired Lynn Levin
presided at the head of
the table like the
matriarch at Passover

Her Haggada was a
handout of famous
odes. Pindar came
first. Such a man
was he that his
fame remains after
two thousand years

He loved excellence
and celebrated the
victors of the Olympiad
while detesting villains
as in modern times
Adolf swore off the
golden-skinned Jessie
Owens of America.

Owens, unlike Adolf,
has descendents,
and all of us like
Pindar and Shelley
Keats and Byron

Stand under the
enormous throne
of sky and celebrate
early Spring.