Grinning for Poetry Friday

                 Jama Rattigan, at Jama's Alphabet Soup is our perfect host today, ignoring the soup, and going straight to the sweets! Go visit all the desserts shared by everyone!  

                 I have been immersed all of September in poetry, and enjoying the writing with groups in two different worlds. Since the beginning of September, I've had the pleasure of joining Renee La Tulippe's wonderful Lyrical Language Lab, an online writing workshop with Renee, and other poets from all over the world. Renee blogs at No Water River.  I still have one more week of that work to do because I also just returned home from the barn at Boyd's Mill, Pennsylvania, a Highlights Foundation Workshop, Poetry for the Delight of It with David L. Harrison.  It was another marvelous time and opportunity to write with a great group. It feels good to be with those who love writing as much as I do. One additional special thing was that I got to meet and write with JoAnn Early Macken of the Teaching Authors blog. After enjoying their blog posts for a long time, it was wonderful to be with JoAnn in person!

at the Highlights Workshop - a taste of the beauty

              I feel like shouting those words from Mark Strand's poem, Eating Poetry: "Ink runs from the corners of my mouth./There is no happiness like mine./I have been eating poetry." It also seems appropriate because of Jama's mouth-watering post for us this Poetry Friday, and fits the poem I want to share. I was inspired this past week, but sometimes stuck. There weren't always prompts, but one was "happy", and I wrote a few pages, attempting ideas, not finding a particular path to follow anywhere. Our last day together was Wednesday, and we shared other poems, first drafts, poems by others we loved, and so on. 

              Finally, I got it, at least for me. I felt so happy and thought more than anything that I wished that others would find something in their lives that made them feel that way, too. Here's the poem:

               Happy

Do you feel a heap of happy?

Do you joke a lot—or not?

Is there laughter in your cupboard?

or just an empty spot?

I’ll be glad to gift some giggles,

if you think you’re running low.

It’s sad to live without a laugh,

better to gleam and glow.

Bring a bucket for some smiles;

I’ll throw in grins for free.

You’ll need guffaws to last a while;

The cost is ten te hees.

             Linda Baie © All Rights Reserved