Oak Bend Review

Necklace of Moss

Remember the old blue dory a storm coughed up,

how you packed its seams with tar-soaked caulking 

and painted it blue so you couldn't be seen very easily---

blue on blue under blue---how that's what you wanted?

You with your adolescent thoughts of killing yourself

hooked so deep, pickerel boy, you never believed

you'd grow old.  Can you see me now?  I am the ocean

you rowed across.  The sun tanning you golden is me

My life is yours. 

Let's scare ourselves today and go really far out

just to see what we're made of.  We'll beach the boat 

and scrape off the moss that's been slowing it down.

We'll do it in honor of having gone so far out that

we became possible, something we thought we could never be.

                                                Oak Bend Review Pushcart Nomination November 2009

WE WILL MISS YOU JACK...

A great talent and dear friend has passed away.   I call him "dear friend" because if you ever met him, that is what you would call him.  The poet, Jack Myers, died peacefully in his sleep on Monday, November 23rd.  Jack was the Texas Poet Laureate from 2003-2004 and Co-founder of The Writer's Garret.  In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made directly to The Writer's Garret per Jack's wishes. 

Contact Grace at (214) 828-1715 for more information or access the Writers Garret website at http://www.writersgarret.org/  

I had the pleasure of getting to know Jack Myers. He was the guest in our March/April 2009 issue, after which he invited me to introduce him at a reading in Dallas.  He must have known it would mean the world to me.  It was one of the highlights of my life. He is one of the kindest, most generous souls I have ever met, and my life is richer for having had the opportunity to get to know him.