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<TITLE>Re: [OSLIST] poet laureate</TITLE>
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<FONT COLOR="#0000FF">may my blood find the courage to flow again.<BR>
may the earth again rise shaped by warm, tender hands.<BR>
may we lay in cool grasses telling our stories,<BR>
while children run laughing in circles around us.<BR>
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(thank you, jeff)<BR>
<BR>
LAUGHING IN CIRCLES<BR>
<BR>
We circled for a meeting of grown-ups<BR>
on the patio. Aidan, four years old,<BR>
<BR>
with rubber ball, markers, pad of paper<BR>
had all the space around us for his play.<BR>
<BR>
First thing he did: he dragged a folding chair<BR>
across the stones and wedged it among ours.<BR>
<BR>
A place for him (he had no intention,<BR>
of course, to sit there). Bounced his ball a while,<BR>
<BR>
then tiptoed over, handed it to each<BR>
of us in turn, clockwise, for us to toss<BR>
<BR>
and him to chase, like a dog but silent,<BR>
so patient as we talked our grown-up talk.<BR>
<BR>
Then belly-down he drew pictures, rolled them,<BR>
laid one under each chair like a snowflake.<BR>
<BR>
<I>Oh, do not forget them! </I> <BR>
<BR>
Oh, do not forget them, be they thirteen<BR>
or seven, four or one. You be the loom,<BR>
<BR>
the walls, the ground. They are the very thread<BR>
of Spirit, and no one has to teach them<BR>
<BR>
how to weave, or when, or why.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
Chris Weaver<BR>
Swannanoa, North Carolina, USA<BR>
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