Poem Challenge

Poetry is important. No less than science, it seeks a hold upon reality, and the closeness of its approach is the test of its success. --Babette Deutsch

Be The Change:
Share your favorite poem with someone today.

I have to confess to not having a favorite poem; but I'm going to share one I like.

Uncle Jim by Peter Meinke,
from Liquid Paper: New and Selected Poems.

What the children remember about Uncle Jim
is that on the train to Reno to get divorced
so he could marry again
he met another woman and woke up in California.
It took him seven years to untangle that dream
but a man who could sing like Uncle Jim
was bound to get in scrapes now and then:
he expected it and we expected it.

Mother said, It's because he was the middle child,
and Father said, Yeah, where there's trouble
Jim's in the middle.

When he lost his voice he lost all of it
to the surgeon's knife and refused the voice box
they wanted to insert. In fact he refused
almost everything. Look, they said,
it's up to you. How many years
do you want to live? and Uncle Jim
held up one finger.
The middle one.