NaPoWriMo – Day Fourteen

Busy day doing not much of anything and I’m trying to work with the NaPoWriMo prompt and now I’ve forgotten what it was really all about…

You’ve taken that quiz: what x number of
people living or dead would you dine with,
if you could choose? Classic conundrum.
The answers are wide-ranging, the reasons
personal and predictable, but for
me — give me a table full of folks who
call New England home. Set a place for them:
Emily, Robert, Norman, HDT,
Mary O, Winslow, and John Sargent too.
Billy Collins, (New York, but close enough)
We’d gladly pass potatoes and the night.
What would we talk about? Weather, of course
and love, death and happiness and all things
under that changeable New England sky.

Why these people, you and others may ask?
I like them for their New England natures
They speak their truth and let it surprise you
without too much fanciness. No big fuss.
I like things conversational, and so
like our dinner, simple and to the point.
Twist optional but appreciated.
I tire of the endless highfaluting.
Speak to me simply – what you saw and why
Show me what it did to you that morning
or how the light passed while you watched it go
how birds flew rising and falling like waves
Tell me in plain language how it changed you
all that light, all that living, all those days.

And I’m pretty sure I could tell these folks all about my re-entry into the world of vermiculture and how today I prepared for that.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. — Winston Churchill