April is National Poetry Month! I aim to post a poem each weekday in celebration of the form. Some old, some new, some published, some never-before-seen.
Poetry is all around you.
The first bluejay of Spring: poem!
Your nephew feeding a cucumber to his grandpa: poem!
A first kiss: poem!
A high plains sunset that paints cumulus clouds pink: poem!
A last kiss: poem!
I was in Billings, Montana for work a couple of summers ago, when on my way to find coffee, I saw a hotel patio filled with free used chairs. I knew there had to be a poem there, so I took a picture of the scene with my phone. Later, on the flight (which is where I find writing comes the easiest), I wrote this poem in its entirety—with only slight revisions. This is unusual for me! It takes me painstaking hours to compose and even more painstaking hours to read, revise, edit, re-read, revise again, format, etc.
It’s become one of my personal favorites.
FREE CHAIRS!
I found a hundred free chairs
today, while walking from my
motel room to a knockoff
Starbucks. These weren’t
chintzy aluminum
folding chairs, but
fully-loaded, cushioned
armchairs—some with
stains—upholstered in
textured marmalade chenille.
They were really free,
with a sign which read
“FREE CHAIRS!”
out front, that slipped,
rotated ninety degrees,
and is the only reason,
to my mind, that they were all
still there, on the patio
of the downtown Billings DoubleTree.
I thought, for a few strides,
about the many people who
had sat in those chairs
through the years, at
wedding receptions,
optometry conferences,
wakes,
and what stories
the chairs could tell,
but soon got overwhelmed,
and anyway
I don’t have
space for even one
free chair.