Richard’s Corner

This month marks the 15th anniversary of writing poetry with MaryMcGinnis, poet extraordinaire. Mary, like Homer is one of the great sightless poets. Of course, Mary has written 5000 poems and Homer only wrote two, but we don’t hold that against him.

In January of 2005, 6 months after the death of my poetry wife, I attended one of Mary’s Sunday evening poetry writing groups. I had known Mary from New Vistas, where we both worked. For the last few months, I had been dreaming in words each night and writing them down. They were all prose pieces, not poems, but they gave me the impetus to seek out Mary’s group. That night, we wrote and I still wrote in prose.

That very night, my writing dreams continued, only now in poetry. So I learned poetry by McGinnis osmosis.

An example of a Mary poem and one that I wrote at her table about 2 years ago

WHAT STARS DO

Your daughter bought you a battery-operated TV—
you walked her ten acres pulling

Mistletoe off the trees. Although you said you never felt
Like yourself, you finished a deck and built a stone room

Onto a sunporch. And finally found the perfect truck
For you to drive for the last two months
Before you died.

Mary McGinnis

HOW WE SAVE WATER

We live in cold sweat.
All percolations of perspective lie
hidden beyond what water can reach,
silence, it cuts through threads of despair.

When the dark breath of envy scorches,
we ask the robin for dispensation,
trees can only offer communion of leaf sound,
the audacity we wish for, falls upon us like rain.

To walk on water leaves no footprint.
To wait for love, the only gift that gets us there.

Richard Wolfson