the problem with poetry

Camping was lovely. I wished on a shooting star at 2:30 in the morning as I laid awake. :) And I saw this terrific piece of graffiti on a huge boulder:

It must have taken someone a long time to carve this into solid rock. That's a lot of luv.

On a completely different note, I'm thinking of submitting some poetry to a contest the library's holding. It isn't really blog-worthy material, except that it's made me think about the problem with liking poetry. My conclusion is this: The problem with liking poetry is that no one else likes it except other poets. Being a poet isn't like being a musician, because no one dislikes all music. But if you tell people you write poetry, they say, "Oh, I hate poetry," not realizing that they've just shaken the foundations of your dreams. Or else they're nice enough, but they don't get it. So you feel kind of dumb because you like the way that what the poet didn't say means just as much as what he did, or the way the words skitter across the page and paint pictures in your mind, and when you say the opening words out loud you really understand how the poem is supposed to feel - and when no one else understands, it feels as though maybe there's something a little dumb about it, after all.

Not that this has ever happened to me. ;)

But anyway, that's my rambling on poetry. And I'm going to submit something! This is a big deal, because I never show anyone what I write. So be excited for me. :)

later days

"Granted, fate and tragedy, aimless and just-missing-by-a-hair are part of human experience, but they are not all, and I'm not sure they are a major part, even in the lives of men who know no Designer or design. For me, I have seen a Keener Force yet, the force of Ultimate Good working through seeming ill. Not that there is rosiness, ever; there is genuine ill, struggle, dark-handed, unreasoning fate, mistakes, 'if-onlys' and all the Hardyisms you can muster. But in them I am beginning to discover a Plan greater than any could imagine. "

-Jim Elliot, 1951