Teachers Act Up!

It doesn’t matter. I say this and yet I do dedicate some small portion of time to what I call “Po-Biz”–the business of getting the poetry I write (because I must), into a more public sphere where I can call it art.

I have put some thoughts on this link.

https://www.smore.com/n3wr1-submitting-poetry-for-publication

I keep the eye on writing new and better poems, poems that I need to get through the collective trauma of our lives. And yet, if I am to take myself seriously as a poet, a maker of art, I must share these poems to see if they work and how they work in the larger world.

“She’s nice so someone will want her”

A black stray, mangled with grey

sluff under a thin, black coat, rib

bones so pronounced under torso

one can imagine her already under

grounds she barely stands on. Hind leg

contorted, dragged two miles to follow me

home after I’d held her a plastic water cup.

People don’t always want what’s nice.

They want four legs, Labs or Retrievers.

Or they fall on hard times and are harder

on those below them. The dog’s second

full dish of food’s gone.  Her tail’s aflame,

screen whacking in wait while  our first

rescue pup spoons with me on the sofa,

certain of two meals a day, treats to sit. Stay.

Okay! chirped and he bounds the front yard

while the back’s closed with this homeless girl.

When I said we’d take her, soon, to animal control

I was startled by my son’s words, the same I wanted

to believe. But there’s not as much niceness

going around. We’re starved for it, the full

feeling so grand, you want to feed it

from your hand, bathe its soiled, sore paw,

scratch its kind head as she bows.

*To donate to “Cardi’s” amputation surgery costs, http://athenscaninerescue.com/donations/

*Postscript December 2020: “Cardi” was taken to the shelter and then to the vet clinic for diagnostics where the vet clinician fell in love with her and adopted her. At a healthy weight, her leg seems to have healed enough to walk and run and so it has not (yet) needed amputation. It’s a happy ending. Cardi is in the happy care of a dog loving owner and has a sibling dog, gets to sleep on the owner’s bed. Ah, so there are still some really nice humans.