Friday Evening Meanderings - - Gifts

Gifts come in many shapes and many sizes.

Some are wrapped in pretty paper with a perky bow.

Some are not.

Lately, I've received gifts through the magic of the interwebs.


I posted a poem here a few weeks ago that my friend Ingrid sent me.  A wonderful piece by L. B. Thompson - "Variation on a Theme by King David."  That was my first exposure to Ms. Thompson.  And it was the loveliest of gifts.  Because I enjoyed it so much, I passed it along to several friends in the hopes that it might touch them, as it did me.  In return -  Voilà! - another gift popped into my mailbox!  One of those friends who enjoyed it every bit as much as I did, returned the gift by sharing with me this piece which she ran across in a recent issue of New Yorker.


Pescadero by Mark Doty

The little goats like my mouth and fingers,

and one stands up against the wire fence, and taps on the fence board
a hoof made blacker by the dirt of the field

pushes her mouth forward to my mouth,
so that I can see the smallish squared seeds of her teeth,
      and the bristle-whiskers,

and then she kisses me, though I know it doesn't mean "kiss,"

then leans her head way back, arcing her spine, goat yoga,
all pleasure and greeting and then good-natured indifference: she loves me,

she likes me a lot, she takes interest in me, she doesn't know me at all
or need to, having thus acknowledged me.  Though I am all happiness,

since I have been welcomed by the field's small envoy, and the splayed hoof,
fragrant with soil, has rested on the fence board beside my hand.




And that, my friends, is my Friday Evening Gift to You.  Enjoy!

You can read more about and by Mark Doty here - http://markdoty.blogspot.com/   and  here  - http://www.markdoty.org/


I'm enamored with modern poetry with a whimsical slant - anyone have any they'd care to share?