Poetry Friday: The Music of Gratitude

In our family, we never wanted anything to end, so we made a... "rule." It was your birthday until the cake was all gone. It was summer until you couldn't wear your flip flops (sometimes summer lasted until November). It was Sunday until 1 a.m. Monday morning. It's Thanksgiving until all the leftovers are finished.

So. Happy Thanksgiving, Part II, to many of you.

Today's poster is a post-Thanksgiving PSA, brought to you by the WPA, whose artists were making sure the nation had nice bright teeth without cranberry skins in between them. SO. After you make that nice turkey omelette this morning, do brush. Thank you.

It's still Thanksgiving weekend, time to give thanks for silliness. Entertain yourself by making a snowflake and enjoy today's Poetry Friday selection.

Poem: "In memory of George Lewis, Great Jazzman" by Lou Lipsitz from Seeking the Hook: New & Selected Poems. Copyright © 1997 Signal Books.

In memory of George Lewis, Great Jazzman

1

Man is the animal that knows

the clarinet

     makes his living
on the docks, a stevedore,
110 lbs., carrying what loads
he can

the Depression comes along,
his teeth rot, no money, and
he has to accept silence


2

Thirteen years
later
     they put the instrument
back together
     with rubber bands
bought him

new teeth
     and then he began
...

Read the whole of this joyful celebration of music and life here. The final stanza is one I have read over and over again:

4

Alright. There is a frailness
in all our music.
Sometimes we're broken
and it's lost.
Sometimes we forget
for years it's even in us, heads
filled with burdens and smoke.
And sometimes we've held
to it and it's there,

waiting to break out
walking back from the end.
...
Poetry Friday dances on at Under the Covers.