Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

A smile
and that was it

she had you captured
and that was

the first time
you saw her

as you climbed aboard
the school bus

that November
and as you took

your seat toward
the back

you carried her smile
with you

and it seeped into
and seemed to enter

every pore
and vein

and artery
of your being

and when you
looked up front

there she was
sitting with her head turned

still gazing at you
and that smile

and those sparkling
blue eyes

and all the rest
of the kids on the bus

seemed not to be
seemed elsewhere

it was (at least to your mind)
just you and her

and that smile
and those eyes

and as you looked away
out of the window

the sun seemed
to make efforts

to shift clouds
to bless your day.

You say momentous things, simple sometimes, complex other times and all with a magnificent simplicity. Rarely have your poems failed to move me one way or another.

The Jorie Grahams and the Ashberys may get all the academic kudos and prizes but God what sterile poetry----your simple (but very, very hard to achieve this simplicity) words carry life like arteries and veins carry life.

Okay, my praise may seem excessive but it isn't. I really, really like your poems.

One note on this poem---maybe it should be "every pore and vein".

Thank you for reading and comments. Yes, vein, not veins.