365 days

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menu
m ?
t Black bean tostadas
w Asian shrimp noodles
t breakfast
f ?
s Mexican chicken pizza

Nichole's WW journal

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reading

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the books of 2007
  • "The Children of Men"
  • "A Spot of Bother"
  • "At First Sight"
  • "The Night Gardener"
    the books of 2006
    books to read

    ...

    The Best Ribs
    Dad's Ever Had
  • Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville
  • The Alton Brown recipe Nichole made
  • The ribs at that place in Branson
  • Carolina Barbecue
  • FireBonz
  • ...

    Thursday, April 20, 2006

    'At the Edge of Town'

    American Life in Poetry: Column 056

    By Ted Kooser
    U.S. poet laureate

    When I complained about some of the tedious jobs I had as a boy, my mother would tell me, Ted, all work is honorable. In this poem, Don Welch gives us a man who's been fixing barbed wire fences all his life.
    At the Edge of Town
    Hard to know which is more gnarled,
    the posts he hammers staples into
    or the blue hummocks which run
    across his hands like molehills.

    Work has reduced his wrists
    to bones, cut out of him
    the easy flesh and brought him
    down to this, the crowbar's teeth

    caught just behind a barb.
    Again this morning
    the crowbar's neck will make
    its blue slip into wood,

    there will be that moment
    when too much strength
    will cause the wire to break.
    But even at 70, he says,

    he has to have it right,
    and more than right.
    This morning, in the pewter light,
    he has the scars to prove it.


    From "Gutter Flowers," Logan House, 2005. Copyright (c) 2005 by Don Welch and reprinted by permission of Logan House and the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.


    posted by Nichole @ 2:50 PM  

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    ..."Good Omens"
    ..."When We Were Wee" Redux
    ...The Great Zucchini
    ...On the Beach
    ...When We Were Wee
    ...Happy Easter!
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    ..."While I Was Gone"
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