Loose Leaf Notes

1. Today I learned that sparrows don’t care who is watching but pretty birds hide from view.

2. I took the photos in this post from inside my birdwatcher’s box that the boys made for me. I can get in and out from the back and there’s a stool inside to sit on.  Photos are HERE.

3. I don’t take a pill for depression because I don’t want to lose the lesson / Most fear is distortion / Some sadness is golden / and sometimes the best singing is blue.

4. But where is my bluebird of happiness / my wonderful world of blue sky? / I imagine them off living a new life / with those who take them for granted.

5.  Birds show up in 4 of the 33 poems in my new chapbook Packing a Suitcase for the Afterlife, and more if you count chickens.

6. “There’s a difference between art and entertainment.  Entertainment is really about forgetting about your life and art is about remembering your life.” – Father John Misty

7. The Little River Poetry Festival is back!   Building on last year’s inaugural event, this year’s festival is scheduled for June 9 – 11 and will take place in the meadow of On the Water kayaking during the day and the Floyd Friends Meeting House at night. The festival is hosted by Norfolk published poets and Poetry Society of Virginia members Judith Stevens and Jack Callan and will showcase featured readers, workshops and open mics. There will be opportunities to explore ekphrastic poetry (descriptive poems inspired by art or scenery) during a kayak trip, a hike to the Buffalo and a birdwatcher’s nature walk.  “Poets with heart” is how Stevens describes this year’s readers and workshop presenters, which will include several regional poets, including Floyd Countian Colleen Redman, who will be reading poems from her recently published chapbook Packing a Suitcase for the Afterlife Saturday afternoon.  –   More from the story on the LRPF that appeared in The Floyd Press last week HERE. 

8. It’s my  birthday, but, because I’ve been trying to limit my sugar intake, I actually asked not to have my special  birthday carrot cake by chef Kelly, but now I’m regretting it.  My grandson Byrce’s birthday is three days before mine. No cake from that party either, but I’ve been singing “number nine, number nine, number nine” to him.  He’s a Beatles fan so he gets the reference.

9. I like to lie about my age by a year. I call it buffering.  Yesterday I got interviewed about my poetry book by a reporter for The Hull Times, the local paper from the town I grew up in.   I thought about lying about my age (by one year) if I was asked, but then realized that anyone in Hull that remembers me also knows what class and what year I graduated high school.  (He never asked but I realized if he did, I’d still come off a year younger because the interview happpened the day before my birthday.

10. Poverty is a preexisting condition. So is moral decency – or lack of it. – My Dharmacratic friend Will

11. THIS Website Will Mail Your Ashes To The GOP If Trumpcare Kills You. Really.

12. It’s never too late to put flowers on the table / to let the song birds of your childhood/ sing like Jericho through middle age.

13. The grass may be greener on the others side but it still needs to be mowed.

__________Thirteen Thursday