Did you know that the U.S. Poet Laureate (2004-06) lives in Garland, a little town about eight miles from here? I bet you didn’t. (Beth, you don’t count.)
Our little once-weekly newspaper has a little poetry section in it that Ted Kooser (Mr. Laureate to you) ‘hosts’ He picks two poems from all ’round the nation and prints them, with permission. I don’t have permission and I’m doing it anyway. There have been a couple that I regret not keeping, because now my feeble memory can’t even remember what they were about – just that they were awesome.
I’ll reprint “Catching the Moles” by Judith Kitchen:
First we tamp down the ridges that criss-cross the yard
then wait for the ground to move again.
I hold the shoe box, you, the trowel.
When I give you the signal you dig in behind
and flip forward. Out he pops into daylight,
blind velvet.
We nudge him into the box, carry him down the hill.
Four times we’ve done it. The children worry.
Have we let them all go at the very same spot?
Will they find each other? We can’t be sure ourselves,
only just beginning to learn the fragile rules of uprooting.