#VerseLove is an Absolute Treasure for Teachers Who Write and Writers Who Teach. I am Exploding with Gratitude from Yesterday's Opportunity to Host a Challenge.

Yesterday, I had the honor to host the 5th day of #VerseLove, and I drew on my undergraduate days of Ruth Stone and her tremendous impact. Each and every class she offered was a gift and her investment has stayed with me for life. As I write on the site, in KY I started a tradition of Poetic Drive-Bys were kids were invited to leave a poem for another to discover. For a couple of years, I've loved running into a mail woman a few miles from my home who come for Karal, always with a dog biscuit and absolute joy with the fairy friends she meets. She was a perfect individual to write a poem for, and I can't wait to gift her with this when we run into her once again. 

More impactful, however, was the number of poetic responses my poem received. I couldn't help but tear up reading so many gifts written for others, especially in heart-felt, magical ways. This is the gift of language, the power of words, and the joy of the assignment. 

What gifts are inside of you?

Deliveries

~b.r.crandall

You don’t belong to us,
these porches of boxes,
driveways, & sidewalks –
yet, you bring stamped smiles
to our criss-crossing streets,
always carrying that satchel of language
over your shoulder:
sales, news, bills, birthday cards –
a correspondence of snails
assigned to chase Paul Revere.

We see you in the morning
working with packaged purpose,
eyes on lookout
for fuzz-nuggets
yanking idiots like me
at the end
of their ropes.

You might as well be my mom,
aunt, therapist,
reader of Tarot cards
who explained to me that death
is just like Publisher’s Clearing House.

Karal asked me to write you this poem
in exchange for the milkbones –

Joy, she says, comes from a delivered gesture.
Yours, hers, mine.

That’s why I let her lick
the envelope.