Wednesday, April 19, 2017

The Feast of Life: National Poetry Month


Today's guest poet is Nancy Keck from Colorado. She is a retired Developmental Reading faculty at Western Colorado Community College, has written poetry for years, and belongs to Women Writing for a Change in Western Colorado.

   Feast on My Life

I want to feast on my life, to savor each of the many blessings that fill it now.
            The orange scented blessings of our three daughters,
             mothers themselves, so beautiful and so brave!
             The salty scented blessings of the little ones, three two-year-olds in our blended family,
                 each one a tornado of energy
                 each one a unique gift of love.
And the two babies whose soft skin, like the flesh of a pear, guides us to caress them.
        
I want to feast on the surprise that is my new husband,
                 learning to trust again has been slow and difficult for me,
                 but he is constant.
      A gardener, he tastes of dirt and honey, tomatoes and chocolate.

I want to luxuriate in stroking the soft coats of my huskies and gaze into the gentle brown eyes of my
lab-mix, Murphy.
    My dogs are my dearest companions
                urging me out to walk along the Colorado River,
                they leap, run and play joyfully in the sunshine.
I want to feast on my life         
              on all its honeyed sweetness    
              and sour sadness
   for this savory banquet is all mine.                                     

                                                                                ~ Nancy E. Keck   April 2, 2012

Nancy's poem could be a response to Mary Oliver's "The Summer Day," which has the oft-quoted end lines: 
Tell me, what is it you plan to do 
with your one wild and precious life?

Readers, what do you feast on? Or how would you answer Oliver's question? Kindly leave a comment for Nancy below.


2 comments:

  1. gather’d round a dinner-fest
    rued I beside my siblings
    silly hurts, imagined fears
    childhood pranks confess’d
    with joy, with mirth
    who-dunnit tales revealed
    there never was a royal feast
    where guests-in-rags turned kings and queens.

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    Replies
    1. Oh, what a lovely response, Agnes! Thank you! Here's to all feasts of the very best sort!

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