Poetry

catholic heart work camp #4 here’s another grateful tribute to the Catholic Heart Work Camp –90 kids from all over our land poured into town last week were divided into small groups did chores big and small built a handsome fence around Enos Park’s apple orchard (its odd location made it a magnet for fly-dumping; […]

my nephew in college 1980 informsgrandparents he’s writing a manual for his former h.s. band leader to emphasize to parents that despite  budget cuts and the “back-to-basics” drive that music, arts, are not mere frivolity; I quote a portion: “The difficult idea to get across is how important aesthetic experience is  for high school kids. […]

some things you don’t forget #7 we lived in the country the end of a long lane a car sped up a stranger saw us four kids playing on the lawn spied the iron rabbit sitting in the grass grabbed it by its metal ears said here’s a dollar shoved the rabbit into his trunk […]

family memory poem # 11 my niece jackie jo maybe seven  riding with parents sister headed toward a northern wisconsin lake jackie held her red swim suit  out the window it flapped in the  breeze “if you drop that” warned  her dad “we wont stop to pick it up” the inevitable occurred she dropped it […]

 My dad responding to an applicant for a job: “I am afraid you are a little young and therefore lacking in experience for the job of assistant  herdsman” and ends with “Now for   some unsolicited advice. While most employers know that a man’s maininterest is the wage it is much smarter for the man also […]

vermont report june 2019 lately every obscure little roadway in vermont has had to be named neat green signs white letters some are places suttons farm o’neills farm most are nature appropriate hidden pastures whippoorwill lane sunset  view mulberry place maple lane fox run (close to whitetail ridge!) if our road weren’t already named – […]

fathers day poem # 1       if you have to explain a joke it’s no longer funny when I tell this one I draw blanks but when I was a kid the elopement-ladder-to-the-girl’s-window  was as common a cartoon site as is the perennial desert-island-with-palm-tree  my friend says her dad really meant it though when he […]

advancing age poem # 4            I think I still have all my marbles  but sometimes some of them roll under the table or bed and I find them somewhat difficult to retrieve 2019 Jacqueline Jackson

years ago in a snowstorm I chased a car all the way across town because the license plate said ELROND I finally trapped the King of the Elves in his driveway invited him to our Lothlorien Banquet the following night he politely declined just yesterday I spotted a plate MDL ERTH  I didn’t chase that […]

Archival find, Current times #3   My grandfather wrote to a U of Wis  Ag prof, 1932, about the Depression. “My neighbor is a pessimist, he has no hope for better conditions on this earth. Therefore his spirit takes the joy out of hard struggle. I am Irish enough to feel the bigger the     fight, […]

wordsy poem #1       I’m fond of words that’s no  surprise I like little big old  new made-up made-down smiley saintly smutty it’s evident though that individual-one goes heavilyfor the latter it does seem to be catching–our general populace has permission to use much more freely this new normalcy of  insultiture the barr has surely […]