Vox Populi
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Doug Anderson: What if I wrote a poem
About being seventy-seven
and trying not
to speculate how long I’ve got left
and I loved a woman
who was far away in another city
and it was snowing and cold
and the wind found places
around the window frames
to sneak in and trouble me
and my memory hurt
from the bad things I’d done
and those little lit places in my cells
where I’d done good
were not enough to keep me warm
and my buck up
motor wasn’t working
and prayer and meditation
just taught me I was present
with all this and one Buddhist said
our karma is manure
to grow flowers in but right now
it just stinks like an old hog
and not only that some idiot
will try to give me advice
if I publish this poem
so I won’t bother, how about that?
Photograph by Doug Anderson
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Nothing to add, thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
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Once again, Doug, your words spoken from your heart and gut and groin – those words also speak for me. All I’m struggling with and can’t express you have just expressed. You have an amazingly strong and beautiful gift. Thank you.
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Thanks, Jane!
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I also give this fine poem a “yep.”
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Yep!
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As someone soon turning 81, I really connected with this pondering poem. I think you nailed it.
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No advice. Just a “yep” from another old traveler.
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No, you don’t have to worry. You are a human being, with everything it means to be in the world with your bare hands and be ready to get dirty as well as clean them up in sunlight, and an extraordinary poet. (Forgive bad English)
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Thanks, Marina!
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Lovely.
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“my memory hurt
from the bad things I’d done
and those little lit places in my cells
where I’d done good”
I have been trying to describe that and now Doug has! Bravo!
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Thanks, Laure-Anne!
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Well-Let me suggest something here before I sign off, having read this inadvertent pondering of the literary impulse:
No…never mind. I’m not in the mood and neither are you.
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