A Little Help From Billy Collins

Summer vacation is here. I've had several blog posts running through my head, which is annoying. I'll be sitting, standing, or biking through an experience composing sentences all the while like a demented tour guide. I'll quote the ever charming Billy Collins.

Who said I had to always play

the secretary to the interior?

I'm delighting in horoscopes for the dead, finding the right poem for the right moment much the way a faithful Christian might close her eyes, flip The Holy Bible open, and place her finger on the verse God herself intended her to read. I'd like to share with you how "Thank You Notes" made an hour in an LDS chapel for the baby blessing of my new twin niece and nephew an enjoyable spot of afternoon, my usual resistance and defensiveness dissolved. The sentences are still floating around in my skull for that one, so maybe tomorrow. Instead, I'll share these lovely lines, and hope Collins doesn't mind my zealous appreciation for his fine way with words:

My Hero

Just as the hare is zipping across the finish line,

the tortoise has stopped once again

by the roadside,

this time to stick out his neck

and nibble a bit of sweet grass,

unlike the previous time

when he was distracted

by a bee humming in the heart of a wildflower.

Took the opportunity to be distracted by a bee humming in the heart of a wildflower on a walk through Liberty Park with my mom, sister, and daughters. Good times nibbling at bits of sweet grass ahead these next few months.