Pretty Good Match

I have been writing poetry lately– actually quite a bit. But it's all in the form of song lyrics and the songs are still being formed. I finished this one within a day so that I could publish it on Valentine's Day:



Thanks for watching– there are more songs to come!

Each

I will pick the pears, for you're too small too reach.
And you shall test the pears. Just take a bite of each.

Good One, Goodell

Thrown Out

Strong North Wind

Face the strong north wind
and just keep pedaling.
As long as your feet move
your wheels will spin.
The fastest lose all feeling
in their frozen legs and feet.
The fact that you keep going
means you'll win.

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-seven books checked out from the library
and I can only read one at a time.
But to the library I go, and I can't say no
to a book whose name calls to mine.

My Bass

The two who owned my bass before me
are both in their own bands
and they have better basses now,
but mostly it's their hands
and ears that have improved,
and that's because of time.
I better solder up this bass
and dedicate some of mine.

Relatively Easy

Would it be easier for you to build bookshelves
or to get rid of books?

Getting rid of books is harder than it looks.
But keeping them means shelving them
and dusting them
and moving them
and sometimes even using them
as decor upon the mantel
when you have more books than you can handle.
Reading them?
Well, that can wait
until we move to a place
more than half a city block from the library.
Get rid of them?
We already have.
What we have is already half
of what we had had. Yes. Scary.
We only kept our favorite books--
books about God, theology, linguistics, Middle Earth,
cooking, metallurgy, Mt. Rainier, Spanish…
and we kept a few good books on woodworking,
but we didn't consult them before building the bookshelves
because building bookshelves is relatively easy.

Bright-Eyed Chickens

We made the chickens' ladder steep--
the length too short, the drop too deep.
But in the morning, it is fun
to see the chickens jump and run.
And the clouds are pink and gray
as bright-eyed chickens greet the day.

Taste for Books

If you can read it, she will eat it.
She has a taste for books
and envelopes and papers.
They're everywhere she looks!
They motivate her crawling.
They spur her to great heights.
(She also has an interest
in her mom's reading light.)
She probably wonders why
we seem to really care
about those little markings
at which we often stare.
One day she'll understand
why we do what we do.
It's really quite simple:
we have a taste for books, too!

If a Bogotano

If a Bogotana had this many cleaning supplies, she'd be a professional cleaner.
And he'd be a mountaineer with this hiking stuff, or with just one carabiner.
A Bogotano with this garage would not complain that it's too small.
He'd be a full-time carpenter with just one little stall.
With this moderate stash of polish, he'd be out there shining shoes.
And he'd only have two carboys if he was selling what he brewed.
A Bogotana would be a tailor with this nice sewing machine
and these two bikes would give a job to two Bogotano teens.
They don't need these two mowers– they'd mow parks with a string trimmer.
and they would have an office with these desks and macs and printer.
A Bogotano would start a bookstore with the books on just this case.
But rather than go into business, we keep busy just looking for space!

Do-It-Yourselfishness

It's good if you like to do it yourself.
We like to do it ourselves, ourselves.
Home cooking, home brewing, and self home repair––
we birth our own babies, we build our own shelves.

It's good to take pride in the work that you do,
and we learn a lot when we get involved.
But when pride leads to pride that cuts off from others
then do-it-yourselfishness is what it's called.

Do-it-yourselfishness looks at the world
and says "I won't pay for what I can make,"
without thinking of work that others have done
and thanking them for the ideas that we take.

In our busy lives as do-it-yourselfers
we've probably saved a buck or two.
We've learned-it-ourselves when we've done-it-ourselves:
do-it-yourselfishness is easy to do.

The amazing DIY lung-powered snot-sucker.
Snot-sucker + tubing = proud parents.

Chicken Coop

He's building me a chicken coop
that rolls around the yard,
so dealing with the chicken poop
shouldn't be too hard.

He's making sure this chicken coop
is structurally sound.
We'll have to get the neighbors' help
to roll the thing around!