The Everyday



Got up this morning because Weezer WOKE me up with a phone call. After talking to her, I made some coffee and got out the Collected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay to read. Low and behold, both kids wake up despite having gone to bed after midnight. This having no time alone because BFI lives on a boat HAS GO TO STOP. Read the forward to book with Cartoon Network in background and realized something about poetry forwards...when they are successful, they foster this strong anticipation to delve into the poems while you're still reading the forward. I felt like a horse bucking behind a barn door while reading the Millay forward. For example, got to a part about Millay's "almost Blakean sense of the mysteriousness of ordinary life" and wanted to jump into book and find poems with that sense. Here's one:

CITY TREES

The trees along this city street,
Save for the traffic and the trains,
Would make a sound as thin and sweet
As trees in country lanes.

And people standing in their shade
Out of a shower, undoubtedly
Would hear such music as is made
Upon a country tree.

Oh, little leaves that are so dumb
Against the shrieking city air,
I watch you when the wind has come,--
I know what sound is there.

Edna St. Vincent Millay