April & Poetry

January is National Blood Donor Month.  February is Black History Month.  March is Sing With Your Child Month.  

I donated blood in January.  I read Toni Morrison’s Beloved in February.  I sang with my children throughout March.  Did all these things as a person who considers himself a citizen of strong national identity ought to do.  Hey, I’m as dedicated as the next guy in my desires to express national pride. 

April is National Poetry Month.     

Trumpet interlude blasts through here.

This month, I promise to live and breathe poetry in a way that no man has before this April.

Every day, I will commit one poem to memory and recite that poem in my head or aloud throughout the day.  At night, I will sleep with that poem under my pillow.  In this way, I will live and breathe poetry.  I will allow the poem to live life through me.  For this month, I plan to make my mind a poetry churn.  Just as yogis practice to repeat Gurmukhi or Sanskrit mantras, I will commit my thoughts to poetry written by contemporary, living poets. 

I am excited about this undertaking.  The guys at The Base will envy me.

For one month if the whole nation will be celebrating verse,

to not engage in poetic activity every day of the month would be perverse.

May, June, and July all have their particular commemorative designations.  For instance, July is National Hotdog Month.  National Hotdog Month?  Well, I’ll have to sit that one out, unless the hot dogs can be the herbivore variety.

I’m falling asleep tonight with a variation on a Rumi line dancing through my head.

“Inside you there’s a poet you don’t know about.”