Creatively Aging

The American Academy of Poets tries to do us all a favor in the month of April. It brings poetry to the front and center through National Poetry Month and its many (clever) facets (did you miss Poem Flow?). I subscribed to the poem-a-day e-mail and while some did nothing for me, some did. And I met a lot of poets, as I prefer to, through their carefully crafted words. It’s almost the end of the month but I can say…this is my favorite:

Dark Matter
by Jack Myers

I’ve lived my life as if I were my wife
packing for a trip—I’ll need this and that
and I can’t possibly do without that!
But now I’m about
what can be done without.
I just need a thin valise.
There’s no place on earth
where I can’t unpack in a flash
down to a final spark of consciousness.
No place where I can’t enter
the joyless rapture
of almost remembering
I’ll need this and I’ll need that,
hoping to weigh less than silence,
lighter than light.

Everyday life has a different feel if it is to be packed in a “thin valise”. Even for those of us who think we’re not “what can be done without”.

Thank you Jack!