Kicking Up Sweetness

This is hazardous work, you know, unwrapping these little morsels of sweetness and trying my best to position them to show-off their own natural beauty, but they really aren't made for looking, not even touching, unless with a tongue.

So sitting here in the college Writing Center this afternoon, I slowly unwrapped one luscious foil packaged dollop of chocolate after another and when no one was looking I nonchalantly stole one, then another from my make-shift photo-set. No one else in this room, I mean no one, knew the pleasure of my moment as I sat here with chocolate melting in my mouth, feeling guilty, and oh so satisfied. This blipping job is simply hazardous!

Then with chocolate smudged fingers, I slowly turned the pages of Kooser's poetry book and tried to sigh as quietly as possible so as not to disturb the students here who are seriously doing important work on this next to the last day of winter session in the college Writing Center.


In a Light Late-Winter Wind

In a Light Late-Winter Wind
the oak trees are scattering valentines
over the snow--dark red
like the deep-running, veinous blood
of the married, returning
again and again to the steady heart.

This leaf is yours, friend,
picked from the heart-shaped hoofprint
of a deer. She stood here
under the apple tree during the night,
kicking up sweetness, her great eyes
watching the sleeping house.

from Valentines: Poems
by Ted Kooser,
former U.S. Poet Laureate
winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry


I chose this today because of the blowing wind. If I were a Mid-Westerner, like Skip or one of the others, I'd have a blown leaf and a delicate hoofprint of a deer for a photo. I am, though, stuck in southern California, where I plan to stay. ;-)

With a late afternoon farewell,
Rosie (& Mr. Fun, and Chloe & her friends), aka Carol