Two poets this year. And my life is richer for it. I dived into Elmore Leonard after he died, and did the same with Seamus Heaney. The Irish still have that voice, don’t they?

Wedding Day

I am afraid.

Sound has stopped in the day

And the images reel over and over.

Why all those tears,

The wild grief on his face

Outside the taxi?

The sap

Of mourning rises

In our waving guests.

You sing behind the tall cake

Like a deserted bnride

Who persists, demented

And goes through the ritual.

When I went to the gents

There was a skewered heart

And a legend of love.

Let me

Sleep on your breast to the airport.

And talk about ancient. Here’s the great Sufi poet, Rumi. Great not only for literary excellence, but ideal for daily meditations and writing tune-ups.

Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence:

this place made from our love for that emptiness!

Yet somehow comes emptiness,

this existence goes.

Praise to that happening, over and over.