Ahh, first complete poem of 2009

Today My Heart Leaped

from my chest
and raced
away

grabbing things

saying Mine Be Mine

it grabbed the cracks
in the street
where grass grows
in spring

and makes
hieroglyphs

i always try to read.

it grabbed
gray sky

one snowflake

a gum wrapper

and the small bird
singing
in the leafless tree

and much
much
more

and when my heart
returned

it was so full
i thought
it could never fit
again

in me.
but
it did.

oh
it did.

--St. Valentine’s Day, 2009

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Sarah Long Reading, Poetry at the Grounds, December 2008

On the subject of poetry, next week will be our Third Thursday Poetry at the Grounds, a monthly open poetry reading organized by Sarah Long and me. It's been a labor of love and has been amazingly rewarding - we have had readers sign up in advance and standing room only crowds and young and old, men and women, and some fine wordsmithing in a nice atmosphere of support. What more could a fledging reading series want?

We canceled in January due to my being a total weather wuss (hey, this Florida gal has LIMITS and they begin as soon as temperatures are prefixed with a minus sign. Okay, that's a lie - they begin when the temps are in the single digits. Farenheit.)

RANDOM PHOTO No. 1 (From the Mixed-Up Files of Ms. Zann C. Carter)

With this post, I'm going to start a habit of posting (at random) photos of which I have an abundance - ones that I took thinking I'd use them for a blog post, but never got around to it.

This is a small full-spectrum light by Verilux, sitting to my right in my work area. Amazon was having a great discount on them in the fall (oh, and it looks like they are offering $25 off until 02/28 here or two for the regular price of one here) and I've always wanted to try one so I ordered.

I don't get full-blown SAD, but when we have an inordinate number of consecutive gray days, I get sort of gray myself, feeling sort of damp and chilled in an inner space. I've been using it for 30 minutes or so first thing in the morning when I check email or write. I don't even put it on the brightest setting. And I do think it is quite helpful in keeping the grays from permeating my spirit as they used to.

Namaste and a happy birthday shout-out to my son Shaun, who missed being a Valentine baby by 11 hours and 27 minutes.
'Zann