Poetry Thursday: My memory has left the building

The idea for Poetry Thursday this week was to carry a copy of a poem - my own or someone else's - around with me and pull it out and read it whenever I'd think of it and to share the experience later and how the experience of carrying poetry with me made me feel. Well, here's the scoop - it made me feel forgetful. Heh. I kept forgetting the poem was in my purse until I'd be digging in there for something else and I'd think, "oh yeah, I should get that out and read it....later" and then I'd continue on with what I was doing and later just sort of never came. I found this exercise, like the eavesdropping one from a while back, to be cool in theory but not too compatible with the way my brain works. I'm looking forward to hearing about the experiences of others who tried it, though. I bet some of you did better with it than I did. Since I feel like saying "I carried a poem in my purse for a couple of days but kept forgetting to get it out and read it" isn't exactly a scintillating post, I'll veer off from the prompt for this week and share with you a poem I like by Mary Oliver. We've been getting lots of rain over the past couple of days (no doubt partly from the effects of being on the northern edge of the front brought in by Ernesto) and seeing the swollen creeks all around us made me think of this poem. I thought I might even be able to get a photo of the creek that runs along the edge of our property when it was still turbulent, to really match with the words of the poem, but by the time I thought to take the camera over the hill, the creek was calm. Ah well, I took a photo anyway. Calm is good. The Dog Has Run Off Again and I should start shouting his name and clapping my hands, but it has been raining all night and the narrow creek has risen is a tawny turbulence is rushing along over the mossy stones is surging forward with a sweet loopy music and therefore I don't want to entangle it with my own voice calling summoning my little dog to hurry back look the sunlight and shadows are chasing each other listen how the wind swirls and leaps and dives up and down who am I to summon his hard and happy body his four white feet that love to wheel and pedal through the dark leaves to come back to walk by my side, obedient. ~~~Mary Oliver "Late Summer on Gobbler Creek" You can find out what sort of poetry other bloggers carried in their pocket this week if you click here.