• Home
  • News
  • Actor
    • Photo Gallery
    • Demo Reel and Videos
  • Director
  • Designer
  • Kind Words
  • Contact
KAITLIN WILLIAMS


Valentine MannValentine for Ernest Mann

8/7/2018

1 Comment

 
​Valentine for Ernest MannNaomi Shihab Nye, 1952
You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.
 
Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, “Here’s my address,
write me a poem,” deserves something in reply.
So I’ll tell a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment 
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.
 
Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries 
crawled out and curled up at his feet.
 
Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the off sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.
1 Comment

    Kait's Blog

    A place to collect the thoughts and things that tickle my fancy.

    Archives

    August 2018
    December 2015
    June 2014
    May 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013

    Categories

    All
    Acting
    Barkerville
    Cariboo Summer
    Family
    Wells

    RSS Feed

© 2020 K. Williams | [email protected]
  • Home
  • News
  • Actor
    • Photo Gallery
    • Demo Reel and Videos
  • Director
  • Designer
  • Kind Words
  • Contact