April is Poetry Month--a poem for each day we are open

Sorry to have missed so many days: Imagine too much to do and not enough time for poetry--urghhh





Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day – April 23, 2009
Paper, Scissors, Stone
by Tom Wayman
An executive's salary for working with paper
beats the wage in a metal shop operating shears
which beats what a gardener earns arranging stone.

But the pay for a surgeon's use of scissors
is larger than that of a heavy equipment driver removing stone
which in turn beats a secretary's cheque for handling paper.

And, a geologist's hours with stone
nets more than a teacher's with paper
and definitely beats someone's time in a garment factory with scissors.

In addition: to manufacture paper
you need stone to extract metal to fabricate scissors
to cut the product to size.
To make scissors you must have paper to write out the specs
and a whetstone to sharpen the new edges.
Creating gravel, you require the scissor-blades of the crusher
and lots of order forms and invoices at the office.

Thus I believe there is a connection
between things
and not at all like the hierarchy of winners
of a child's game.
When a man starts insisting
he should be paid more than me
because he's more important to the task at hand,
I keep seeing how the whole process collapses
if almost any one of us is missing.
When a woman claims she deserves more money
because she went to school longer,
I remember the taxes I paid to support her education.
Should she benefit twice?
Then there's the guy who demands extra
because he has so much seniority
and understands his work so well
he has ceased to care, does as little as possible,
or refuses to master the latest techniques
the new-hires are required to know.
Even if he's helpful and somehow still curious
after his many years—

Without a machine to precisely measure
how much sweat we each provide
or a contraption hooked up to electrodes in the brain
to record the amount we think,
my getting less than him
and more than her
makes no sense to me.
Surely whatever we do at the job
for our eight hours—as long as it contributes—
has to be worth the same.

And if anyone mentions
this is a nice idea but isn't possible,
consider what we have now:
everybody dissatisfied, continually grumbling and disputing.
No, I'm afraid it's the wage system that doesn't function
except it goes on
and will
until we set to work to stop it

with paper, with scissors, and with stone.



Ukiah Library Poem of the Day
VISITATION
Jabez W. Churchill
I smell a hearth
long cool from use,
a draft
between the unstained sky
and still pungent dark.
The smoke of many fires
condensed,
frozen on the stones like stars.
Too strong
for only memory to sustain.
Whose presence may announce
I will not know
until the shadow
and its anguish pass.
Until the pictures flow.

April is National Poetry Month

Happy Birthday
William Shakespeare

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day

April 23, 2008

52

So am I as the rich, whose blessed key

Can bring him to his sweet up-lockèd treasure,

The which he will not ev’ry hour survey,

For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.

Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,

Since seldom coming in the long year set,

Like stones of worth they thinly placèd are,

Or captain jewels in the carconet*.

So is the time that keeps you as my chest,

Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,

To make some special instant special blest,

By new unfolding his imprison’d pride.

Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,

Being had to triumph, being lacked to hope.

William Shakespeare

1609

April 23 is celebrated as Shakespeare’s birthday.

If alive, he would be 444 years old today.

He died on April 23, 1616.

* A carconet was a style of necklace with a

large jewel at the bottom center, other

smaller jewels in the rest of the necklace.

Ukiah Library Poem of the Day for National Poetry Month
April 23, 2008

Sonnet 54

O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,

By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

For that sweet odour which doth in it lye

The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye

As the perfumed tincture of the roses,

Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly

When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses:

But, for their vitue only is their show

They live unwoo’d, and unrespected fade;

Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;

Of their sweet death are sweetest odours made:

And so of you, beauetous and lovely youth,

When that shall fade, by verse distils your truth