My Mom was a reader, a reciter.  If you did not grow up in a farm community of the Church of the Brethren and Mennonites, as I did, you may not know what a reader or reciter is.  Dunkards, as we Brethren were colloquially called, had readers.  At special church services, instead of preaching, the “reader” recited poems from memory. I always thought it was better than preaching anyway.  But, Mom was one of the “reciters” – she was the best, I must say –  could go on for nearly an hour reciting poem after poem – of course with the singing of hymns interspersed. 

What is poetry anyway? I looked it up on the internet:  Poetry is a type of literature, or artistic writing, that attempts to stir a reader’s imagination or emotions. The reader conveys this by carefully choosing and arranging words and intonations for emotion, meaning, sound, and effect.

I remember tough old German farmers wiping tears from their eye as Mom recited poems. She really brought meaning and emotion as she recited poems like this:

Gently, Lord, oh, gently lead us 

Through vale of tears, 

Though thou’st decreed us, 

Till our last great change appears.

Angel voices sweetly singing, 

Echoes through the blue dome ringing, 

News of wondrous gladness bringing… 

Ah, ’tis heaven at last!

Why in the world am I telling you all of that – I guess the impact of the first 20 years of our lives are the foundation for what we are – and 20 years of the full immersion in the Brethren faith stayed with me even through careers and marriages that took me to enjoy many other lives and geographies – my mind can still go back home and vicariously through the my apple computer’s digits, ponder early years.

So, I got to playing around with Photoshop – took a selfie – and created four surreal images that needed an explanation or a descriptive title – I thought of poetry as a way to do that. That is how I got to the subject of poetry: 

Sharing Eve’s Apple by John Keats
There’s a sigh for yes, and a sigh for no, 
And a sigh for I can’t bear it! 
O what can be done, shall we stay or run? 
O cut the sweet apple and share it!

Moonlit Apples by John Drinkwater
In the corridors under there is nothing but sleep.
And stiller than ever on orchard boughs they keep
Tryst with the moon, and deep is the silence, deep
On moon-washed apples of wonder.

A Cowboy’s Hat by Baxter Black
So a word to the wise is sufficient
And I guess I should leave it at that.
Suffice it to say, you can bum his last chew
But don’t mess with a cowboy’s hat!
This cowboy’s hat is my pride and joy,
It’s not for kids to use as a toy.
It has a band that an Indian gave to me,
And a pin that is my love’s heart key.

The Hollow Tree by David Lewis Paget
The woods are a magical fairyland
Where the sun speckles through the leaves,
And paints its patterns of light and sound
When the treetops wave in the breeze,
Where nature casts a spell on the mind
Of the one who dares, like me,
To scale the fence, and seek to find
The bole of the hollow tree.

As you swing thru life find things to recite then think great things, think emotion:
“On the Mountains of the Prairie,
On the great Red Pipe-stone Quarry,
Gitche Manito, the mighty,
He the Master of Life, descending,
On the red crags of the quarry
Stood erect, and called the nations,
Called the tribes of men together.”

From The Song of Hiawatha by Henry W Longfellow