In the furniture shop in our town there is a draught stopper that I have fallen for!
Sheep!
Opposite where I park for the wool shop was this amazing Camellia. Of course, I have some new yarn!
Camellia
I’ve found another poem for you in one of my new books. Dana Gioia is another poet new to me. Perhaps if I were American, a Californian even, I would have met his works before. I am having lots of fun reading my two new books packed full with poems to make one laugh, cry, gasp and recognise – certainly to make one think. But it is much more than fun as I ‘meet’ new writers.
Dana Gioia speaks to me through his poems and through this interview on the importance of reading. His linking of reading with activism stirs me! I would have loved to have been in his classes. I also learned that he is Poet Laureate for California. As Michelangelo said,’I am still learning.’ (Clip from the interview and apt!)
Nothing is Lost
Nothing is lost. Nothing is so small
that it does not return.
Imagine
that as a child on a day like this
you held a newly minted coin and had
the choice of spending it in any way
you wished.
Today the coin comes back to you,
the date rubbed out, the ancient mottoes vague,
the portrait covered up with the dull shellac
of anything used up, passed on, disposed of
with something else in view, and always worth
a little less each time.
Now it returns,
and you will think it unimportant, lose
it in your pocket change as one more thing
that’s not worth counting, not worth singling out.
That is the mistake you must avoid today.
You sent it on a journey to yourself.
Now hold it in your hand. Accept it as
the little you have earned today.
And realise
that you must choose again but over less.
Dana Gioia
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