04/28/2020
Congratulations to all the winners who participated in our Poetry Contest and thank you to everyone who watched FB LIVE sessions and, dropped comments and cheered us on! 🎉
Thanks to all of you who submitted your poetry. We thoroughly enjoyed reading what you wrote and in the spirit of life-long learning, you’ve inspired Lisa, Susan and myself, over the past couple of weeks. We put our minds and hearts together and each wrote a section especially for you. In honor of National Great Poetry Reading Day, we humbly offer our collective ode, one of the time revered styles of poetry.
ODE TO POETRY
Lorene’s --
Oh Poetry,
you paint with words
the pictures in our minds
finding you,
finding me
finding the love of poetry
Oh Poetry,
you make ordinary, extraordinary
caterpillar to butterfly
finding you,
finding me,
finding the love of poetry
Oh Poetry,
ideas that capture a glimpse
portrayed in some rhyme
Shape! Share! Shine!
finding you,
finding me,
finding the love of poetry
Oh, Poetry!
Lisa’s --
Ode to Poetry
O Poetry
You create avenues
for me to crawl into my
feelings
when the streets
around me feel
too empty
Finding you
Finding me
Finding the love of poetry
O Poetry
You are always
Insisting that I lift
and place
extraordinary words
and put them in
just the right space
You beg of me to recall
memories and
lace them with
all my senses
Finding you
Finding me
Finding the love of poetry
O Poetry
You are a magnifying glass
To my soul
Your metaphors, your similes
your personification
always pushing me to be an explorer, an observer,
an empath
Finding you,
Finding me,
Finding a love of poetry
Susan’s --
O Poetry
You implore me
To wonder,
Think and reflect
My ever-evolving
Life unfolds
with eyes wide open
You call me to
pay attention
Finding you
Finding me
Finding the love of poetry
O poetry
I remember
remembering
the list long
farseeing
a temporal sense of being
you tempt me to
dig deeper
linger longer
Finding you
Finding me
Finding the love of poetry
O poetry
you urge me
to clip, gather
and arrange words
the poem emerges
randomly found among
disparate sources
reflecting me
Finding you
Finding me
Finding the love of poetry
O Poetry
you are a lens
showing me
where one line ends
another begins
a threshold
all around the
white space
pause
breathe
hold on to the meaning
honor the rhythm
engage in the dialogue
that is revealed
Finding you
Finding me
Finding the love of poetry