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, November 09, 2006

    "In November"

    American Life in Poetry: Column 082

    By Ted Kooser,
    U.S. poet laureate, 2004-2006

    The Illinois poet, Lisel Mueller, is one of our country's finest writers, and the following lines, with their grace and humility, are representative of her poems of quiet celebration.

    In November

    Outside the house the wind is howling
    and the trees are creaking horribly.
    This is an old story
    with its old beginning,
    as I lay me down to sleep.
    But when I wake up, sunlight
    has taken over the room.
    You have already made the coffee
    and the radio brings us music
    from a confident age. In the paper
    bad news is set in distant places.
    Whatever was bound to happen
    in my story did not happen.
    But I know there are rules that cannot be broken.
    Perhaps a name was changed.
    A small mistake. Perhaps
    a woman I do not know
    is facing the day with the heavy heart
    that, by all rights, should have been mine.

    Reprinted from "Alive Together: New and Selected Poems," Louisiana State University Press, 1996, by permission of the author. Poem copyright (c) 1996 by Lisel Mueller. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

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