ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS --- THANK YOU

Spring must really be the season of poetry. I feel like I've joined the grown-up poets --- at least for one day. My poem, Boketto, was published in the Poem-a-Day program today. I've been overwhelmed by the outpouring of emails I've received from dear friends and strangers.

The word, Boketto, is Japanese for staring without purpose. I tweaked the meaning --- as translation so often does --- to stare out windows without purpose. Thanks to January O'Neil for encouraging me to send (and re-send) my poems to Alex Dimitrov who curates Poem-a-Day.

Here are the first few lines and a link to hear me read the poem as well as a few sentences on where the idea came from.




Boketto

Susan Rich


Outside my window it’s never the same—
some mornings jasmine slaps the house, some mornings sorrow.

There is a word I overheard today, meaning lost
not on a career path or across a floating bridge:

Boketto—to stare out windows without purpose.
Don’t laugh; it’s been too long since we leaned

into the morning: bird friendly coffee and blueberry toast. Awhile
since I declared myself a prophet of lost cats—blind lover

of animal fur and feral appetites. Someone should tag
a word for the calm of a long marriage. Knowledge


the heat will hold, and our lights remain on— a second


--- to read the rest of the poem tap here
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/boketto