Memories Of Simple Things

Graduations, job interviews and anniversaries

These days invade photo albums and insist on being remembered

But I prefer to think of the days that curl up in your lap and purr

Days that warm my face like a steaming cup of tea

Rainy days spent lying in the grass watching clouds drift

Some days seem significant—

But I prefer to cuddle up to the soft memories of simple things

-Katherine Westermann, age 18
Lane County, Oregon

Poetry Post Partner for Memories of Simple Things

Across the Basin

Across the wide darkness

between the lights of the barnyards and houses

moving slowly, like just awake stars

swathers at night, glowing

in the alfalfa dust

       each leaving a lined pattern through

       invisible fields, rows which wait

       the further geometry of hay bales.

If you stand on the ridge

the engines become a fine hum,

no less music than the mosquito

or midge, who, like you,

cannot resist the pull of warm air

suddenly alive with harvest.

–M.E. Hope
This poem appeared in the Jefferson Monthly, Sept. 2007 issue

Ask the Poems for Memories Of Simple Things & Across the Basin
 
1. How do you gather warmth?
2. How are you just-wake?
3. What are the gifts of your harvest?
4. How are your dreams like living creatures?
5. How is the ordinary world made extraordinary?