Begin, Again and Again

In high school, I took a number of semesters of poetry with Ellen Kort. She was a former poet laureate of Wisconsin, and she was a wonderful teacher. One of the most supportive teachers I've had. She passed a few years ago, but every so often, I remember this poem, and it gives me at least some hope.

"Advice to Beginners" by Ellen Kort

Begin. Keep on beginning. Nibble on everything.
Take a hike. Teach yourself to whistle. Lie.
The older you get the more they'll want your stories.
Make them up. Talk to stones. Short-out electric
fences. Swim with the sea turtle into the moon. Learn
how to die. Eat moonshine pie. Drink wild geranium
tea. Run naked in the rain. Everything that happens
will happen and none of us will be safe from it.
Pull up anchors. Sit close to the god of night.
Lie still in a stream and breathe water. Climb to the top
of the highest tree until you come to the branch
where the blue heron sleeps. Eat poems for breakfast.
Wear them on your forehead. Lick the mountain's
bare shoulder. Measure the color of days
around your mother's death. Put your hands
over your face and listen to what they tell you

from If I Had My Life to Do Over I'd Pick More Daisies, edited by Sandra Martz. © Papier-Mache Press, 2010.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Common Types of Childhood Cancer

 I'm going to do some posts that give readers a background on childhood cancer throughout the year. My goal is to do at least a few related posts every month, for sure the awareness days and months, and then some other information, news, etc.  First, let's dive in to what types of cancers occur in children. There are many types of childhood cancer, hundreds in fact, especially when you consider subtypes. But which are the most common? In order of most to least common, by percent of childhood cancers, they are: Leukemias - 31% Brain and spinal tumors - 26% Lymphomas - 10% Soft tissue sarcomas - 7% Neuroblastoma - 6% Kidney tumors - 5% Bone tumors - 4% Germ cell tumors - 3% Retinoblastoma - 3% Liver tumors - 2% Other cancers - 4% According to the Children's Cancer and Leukemia Society from the UK via MacMillan Cancer Support ( x ). All childhood cancer is considered rare, with only a few hundred per million diagnosed annually. But if you add that up over the span of a childho...
Read more

Vision Board

Image
 My county library is probably one of the most awesome library systems (I am super biased though) and actually is one of the busiest systems in the country. I love the system dearly. I love going to their events and often bring along a friend. For the first week of the year, I brought her to our newest library building for a Vision Boards workshop. I didn't think we would spend the whole hour and a half, but sure enough, we didn't roll out until just before the end of the workshop. I spent a lot of time combing through the magazines, picking just the perfect images and text for my board. I focused on my hobbies, especially cooking, things I want to do this year. I unfortunately didn't include a lot of art items, just based on what the magazines had, but also got a lot of cool foodie stuff and them some other pretty things.  Overall, I don't have one concrete vision for 2024. I have some resolutions, sure, and I have my goals. But I'm trying not to set the bar too hi...
Read more

Viral Therapy

    Viral therapy is a novel approach to treating cancers.  Infectious shells (viruses) are altered so that instead of causing illness, they fight it from the inside. Because of it's broad applicability, viral therapy shows promise in treating cancer. Read more about viral therapy: Columbus Ohio PubMed review of viral therapy Nationwide Hospital      There are many more articles on Pubmed that discuss various uses of viral therapy and oncolytic viruses. The abstracts are almost always free, and many articles are available through resources at local schools and public libraries.  Happy reading!
Read more