Friday, November 26, 2010

Poetry Friday: Ordinary

On Sunday I mentioned that we would be reading odes in eighth grade this past week. We did, and a couple of kids tried one: I got an ode to water and an ode to chocolate. Good topics. When I started to write my own, though, I couldn't narrow down my thoughts to one object, so I ended up writing an ode to ordinary.


Ode to Ordinary

Praise the tedium of an ordinary day.

Getting up in the morning,
Spreading butter on bread,
Dishes to wash and laundry to fold,
Bickering children with beautiful, dirty faces.

Meetings and emails,
Papers to grade,
Sticky notes and dust.

The regular faces, the regular greetings,
Good moods and bad,
Grumbling about the weather.
Beans and rice for lunch on a green plate.

The sun came up today.
The earth is not quaking under my feet.
I am not in pain.
Dress up and use the good china!

Praise, praise the tedium of an ordinary day.

Ruth, from thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com

Here's today's Poetry Friday roundup.

2 comments:

Mary Lee said...

Thanks for the reminder to

"Praise, praise the tedium of an ordinary day."

I'm thinking quite differently about the time I just spent swabbing down the master bath...

Joyce Ray said...

Thanks for your poem. It reminds me of Kevin Young's odes in his book Dear Darkness.