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I got a an email and poem from the poet Dr. Andy Jones, my friend, a writing/english prof over at UC Davis, host of a poetry radio show on KDVS (Google 'Dr. Andy, KDVS' - it's a cool show and there's archives), and a co-host of the Bistro 33 reading series here in Davis, California. He responds to yesterday's post, which you can scroll down to read.
Dr. Andy Jones
Hi James,
Happy November to you and yours. Thanks for posting that Tom Goff poem "Still Fresh Before All These Years." Like so many, I'm writing a poem a day for November, and my first poem, "Cell Story," written while the kids were watching Caillou during our spare hour provided by the changing clocks, responds in its way to the Goff poem. As it is so fresh, I don't know yet if it's any good, but I nevertheless feel obligated to share it with you.
Andy
Cell Story
Without slime we would have become nothing.
Moist and antediluvian fecundity
Gave our splitting cells something to embrace,
A song to sing before there was music.
Green buds of goop took a billion years
To grow a brain and dexterous limbs.
Praise be to that crucial creature,
The bee, who added one stripe
Every millennium, and soon provided color
To widen our palate. All the best predators
Had their fun before we got here, takings risks
And eating creatures with long memories
Who seemed willing to avenge the pain
Upon us, screaming brachiators,
Until the elephants knocked down our trees.
We stumbled blinking upon the savannah,
Many of us to be quickly eaten so that
A few, you know the ones, could
Express an analogous hunger, an urge
To imagine, to create, to make,
As they say, something out of our lives
As we continue to stir, and bring to a boil,
And add ingredients to, and perhaps solidify
That cell-remembered ubiquitous gloop.
Sweet! Not only do I like it, but it ends with 'ubiquitous gloop.' Outstanding!
All Good Things - Jobe