National Poetry Month Poem of the Day for April 12, 2007

Celebrating the visits to Willits and Ukiah of California Poet Laureate Al Young

WILLITS LIBRARY 10 AM & UKIAH CITY HALL 7 PM with Ukiah Poets Laureate past & present

For Poets

Al Young

Stay beautiful

But don’t stay down underground too long

Don’t turn into a mole

or a worm

or a root

or a stone

Come on out into the sunlight

Breathe in trees

Knock out mountains

Commune with snakes

& be the very hero of birds

Don’t forget to poke your head up

& blink

Think

Walk all around

Swim upstream

Don’t forget to fly

Al Young

Notes on the Future of Love

Meanwhile over in yet another time zone,

somewhere between Iraq and another place

hard hit, the most toxic of gumbos thickens.

To the poisoned Kool-Aid taste of homemade sin,

answers-in-progress stack but don’t add up.

With every putrid breath you take, hope dissolves

into streaming reruns of hell and high water.

In Chinese, in Czech, in Arabic or Albanian,

in Japanese or German, does the Sermon on the Mount

still count? And does it say still: Thou shall not kill?

In your cozy time zone, sandwiched now somehow

between Iraq and another place hard hit,

where do you come down on the future of love?