The Poetry Friday Round-up is Here This Week!

Welcome to Poetry Friday! 

(I'm posting early because I know how you guys are. I'm the same way, so welcome, kindred spirits.) 

I was waffling about what to post today. Atticus gave me a couple of ideas and they were lovely and heady but I was in the mood for something about marriage. ("Sorry, honey, I don't want your ideas. I want something about marriage," I said to my spouse. Hmmm. Perhaps there's something wrong with that but there you have it.)

Then something whispered in my ear: Barbara Crooker.  Crooker's poems are so real and rich. Deep currents run through her deceptively simple work -- currents we all swim and sometimes struggle through: love, nature, grief, food, dreams, marriage. Life.

So, I went wading through Crooker's website and came upon this one, which is lovely and new to me:

Sustenance
by Barbara Crooker

The sky hangs up its starry pictures: a swan,
a crab, a horse. And even though you’re
three hundred miles away, I know you see
them, too. Right now, my side
of the bed is empty, a clear blue lake
of flannel. The distance yawns and stretches.

(Read the whole poem here, at The Poetry Foundation.)

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After I chose that one, I remembered a poem I wrote about eight years ago, also titled "Sustenance." I decided to share that one today, too.

Sustenance
by Karen Edmisten 

Bread,
like marriage,
requires the promise
of leavening.

There is flour and water —
foundation — yes,
but it begs
something more:
fermentation, lather,
messiness
and growth.
It must take on life,
risk failure,
swell in size,
though never
sloppily escape
its necessary confines.

My husband
mixes flour
and water,
baking bread for me.
It is nothing,
he says.

It is everything,
I counter,
as I watch him
measure, stir yeast
and add salt,
carefully constructing a promise.

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For your weekly poetic sustenance, leave your link below, and then go devour some goodness.

Thanks for stopping by!

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