Since elementary days I have reveled in words. A preacher's kid can hardly escape them. My Daddy liked playing with them in his sermons. Often the key points in his messages rhymed or alliterated. He snuck in bits of rhymes and poems. Miss Brown introduced us, in fourth grade, to the Mighty Casey and the fiery finish of Sam McGee. I learned to love hearing just the right words and began trying my own hand at arranging them creatively.
But I have been wayward about that avocation.
A few years ago I happened onto an online challenge called the Poetry Stretch. When I drifted off I renewed my efforts in this old leaf from the Limb in January of 2013:
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For a while I exercised my poetic skills frequently at the prompting of Trisha at The Miss Rumphius Effect. Most Mondays she issues a Poetry Stretch. The current Stretch challenge is to deal with home or habitat. So here is my self-conscious homecoming to the Stretch.
The Home Stretch
I haven't done my stretches, as I should.
My verbs are wretched, stiff as wood.
My nouns are flabby with adjective fat,
wishy and washy as this and that,
gushy and gabby, fallen, flat.
In the new year now, I highly resolve --
fervently vow -- baskets, buckets, of
rollicking, panting, working verbs,
stomping, splashing, dancing blurbs
to astound, aggrieve, prompt, perturb.
by Terrell Shaw
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