Poetry that makes my world shift

Some poems seem inaccessible. But when one resonates, it changes our perceptions.

from the April 3, 2008 edition

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Huh? But it was another good "huh." Then he teased me along with another departure from the list and a return to the process.

"A group of bicyclists whoosh along.... There's something of a cricket sound to the collective tickings of metal.... I confess to the pad that I want all of my father's crickets. His entire night, for that matter."

Ahhhhh. I make a new sound, and my whole world shifts. A new perspective. And that is what I adore about poetry.

Sometimes my thoughts become set in concrete. I see everything the same way I've always seen it. My narrow little world and my teeny-tiny focused perspective fits so familiarly within my life that I don't consider any other way of seeing something.

Mr. Hicok surprises me yet again with: "I've been thinking of getting away. There's a tree some hundreds yards off I've been waiting to get a brochure about...."

A brochure to go visit a tree? I smiled and nodded. We fall into the trap that we must always plan our travels, must find someone else's hype and read it before we venture out to see nature. Someone has to tell me what I'm looking at or I might miss what I'm supposed to see. I've lost trust in myself, my senses. I fail to use them, I live by rote. I don't let myself just experience things.

That's why I need poetry in my life. Why I need to read it and either say, "Huh? I don't get it." Or wait for the days when I say "Ah-haaaaaaa." Then all the wonder returns. I've shed 30 years and just as many pounds, and I am young and curious and surprisingly alive in my mental adventure, thanks to the words of a poet.

Thank you, Mr. Hicok, for your profound, entertaining, thought-provoking, and inspiring, love-soaked poem. It makes me feel as though my dad's here with me again, too. At least the love I felt for him is here, and that makes him feel closer, I know.

Part of me yearns to sit and read and reread Hicok's words. Part of me steps back and shakes my head, afraid that this one poem is an anomaly and the rest will pass right over my head, reducing me to that kid with the dunce cap muttering, "Huh? What is he saying? I don't get it. I don't get it!"

Poetry and I have a definite love-hate relationship. Today, I'm in love. Thanks, Bob.

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