We All Need a Little Poetry

Someone has recently decided to pepper my campus with small sections of poems pasted to red construction paper. These poems have bloomed more reliably than our tulips and have provided, for me at least, a small mental oasis as I stop and take time to read the poetry.

As a result, I thought I would share a few poems from Ron Padgett, a poet with a delicious sense of whimsy and irony. Who else would write a poem like this one:

"Haiku"

First: five syllables
Second: seven syllables
Third: five syllables


Or another favorite:

"You Never Know"

1) What might happen.
2) How people will behave.
3) Oh anything.

Three rules that live
in the house next door.

Along comes the big bad philosopher,
and at their door
he hurls the mighty bolts
of lightning
from his brain.

The door is unimpressed.
Behind it the rules
are chuckling.

I witness this scene
through the kitchen curtains
as I rinse the dishes.