Kooser was recovering from cancer and a crisis of faith in poetry when he began to take early morning walks and was inspired to begin sending a friend short poems on postcards. This is one. It is National Poetry Month and today is Poem in Your Pocket Day. If you like this poem, print it out, carry it around in your pocket today, pass it around, unfold it at some time and share it. Or do so with a different poem.
The quarry road tumbles before me
out of the early morning darkness,
lustrous with frost, an unrolled bolt
of softly glowing fabric, interwoven
with tiny glass beads on silver thread,
the cloth spilled out and then lovingly
smoothed by my father’s hand
as he stands behind the wooden counter
(dark as these fields) at Tilden’s Store
so many years ago. “Here,” he says smiling,
“you can make something special with this.”
— Ted Kooser (thanks, Barbara)
