Cancer/writing Journal #79 July 17

 The Robin: A Critical Evaluation 

The Robin, when it’s still, stands proud and tall, dignity to spare.

Like a WPA mural of Lewis and Clark gazing West

Having perhaps a vision of the great things men will do in these lands.

Sacajawea* gazes West too,

Although further back and secondary, deferring to the great ones.

Or maybe it’s the correct posture of the high school choral group, girls especially,

Standing with back straight and head high just as the teacher demonstrated

So that breath is drawn from deep within the diaphragm.

The Robin moves and the effect is lost.

What’s this rodent scurry, head no higher than the thighs, style points be hanged?

Surely you can do better than that!  It’s unseemly.

The crow’s irregular strut wouldn’t quite do although it would be an improvement.

You know Robin, your hop is not too bad.  I’d go with that. 

Or just fly.

*I got her name wrong in a fourth grade spelling test.

This is the first poem I ever wrote, perhaps in the spring of 2019, perhaps earlier. I'm dredging up things that I wrote for my writing group, partly because I have figured out how to get at them. I think I did all right. The lines are irregular in length which is something that at least in my group, is best avoided. I don't know quite how I would fix that. I like the first two stanzas better than the last one although I think I have extra credit coming for the cheekiness of advising a robin how it should move. And there was some debate as to whether I should have included the fact that I misspelled Sacajawea in a fourth grade spelling test. I decided, "Why not." Actually, I think there was some question as to how her named should have been spelled.