Last day to feel guilty...

Here it is, the end of April. National Poetry Month is over tomorrow and I no longer have to feel guilty about not managing to get a poem up. I thought to end the month I would post one of my new favorite poems. It was written by a poet out in California--his name is David Sullivan and he actually used to be a middle school teacher in NH. I know this because he was my teacher for both 6th and 7th grade. He was one of those really important teachers in my life--influential, kind, excited about teaching and caring towards all his students. He was really and truly a fantastic individual. Anyway, he moved out to California shortly after I left middle school and although we may have exchanged a few letters here and there, I really lost touch with him by mid- to late high school. I heard about him once in a great while from a mutual friend of ours, but I never really bothered to get back in touch first hand.

Then Sophie died. And I got the most incredible empathetic letter from this mutual friend who told me that David's third baby, a little girl, had also died just before her due date. I was heartbroken for them and, of course, sent them a letter. It was then that I found out the David had written this book of poetry with a whole section devoted to his little girl. This poem, about taking down a house of dreams, is one of my favorites. So here it is:

A House For Luna Maria

House of grasshoppers and mud,
dusted white with spent pollen.

Expectant house of what-will-never,
of we-shall-see.

I unbuild it painstakingly.
Unstrip the paint.

Pile the screws in boxes.
Each thing labeled:

shutters, shingles, bricks,
the unused furnace's bulk.

Windows of sea glass. Cupboards
of chipped teeth and driftwood.

House of less-than--
given to the sea.

House her in dust motes
and sand, wheat chaff and flotsam,

birdcalls and birch bark, so I forget.
Then let the wind do its work.


That poem is from the book "Strong-Armed Angels" by David Allen Sullivan; published by Hummingbird Press in Santa Cruz, CA. Copyright 2008.

Thank you for reading my annoying poems all month, we will now get back to our regularly scheduled blogging.