Picnic Timeless

[jjhunter]

Sunday, every Sunday, let's have a community picnic. It's probably been a long week, and it's lovely to have a few minutes to sit back and relax and enjoy some good conversation in a less formal space. Feel free to bring something for the Picnic Basket - a poem you liked this week, a thought you had or something you experienced, or even something completely unrelated to poetry whatsoever that you just feel like sharing. Just take a moment to say hello, and maybe have a bite to eat; no one is going anywhere fast, and the shade promises some relief from the everyday heat. Let’s get to know each other a bit better, here under the branches of the poet’s tree.

Comments

[untonuggan]

I found this poem in a lovely collection I got from the library called Sweeping Beauty: contemporary women poets do housework

Down on My Knees
Ginger Andrews

cleaning out my refrigerator
and thinking about writing a religious poem
that somehow combines feeling sorry for myself
with ordinary praise, when my nephew stumbles in for coffee
to wash down what looks like a hangover
and get rid of what he calls hot dog water breath.
I wasn't going to bake the cake

now cooling on the counter, but I found a dozen eggs tipped
sideways in their carton behind a leftover Thanksgiving Jell-O dish.
There's something therapeutic about baking a devil's food cake,
whipping up that buttercream frosting,
knowing your sisters will drop by and say Lord yes
they'd just love a little piece.

Everybody suffers, wants to run away,
is broke after Christmas, stayed up too late
to make it to church Sunday morning. Everybody should

drink coffee with their nephews,
eat chocolate cake with their sisters, be thankful
and happy enough under a warm and unexpected January sun.

[raze]

Huh! I found myself being really tickled by this despite reading the title of the collection it came from and assuming - wrongly - that it wasn't really up my alley. Thanks for sharing!

[untonuggan]

Thanks for reading!

[spiralsheep]

Poem swap.... this week I read Said the Lord by Moira Burgess, which is about religion and being a woman and (inevitably) housework:

http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/said-lord

[untonuggan]

I love it. Thank you!