Last week, I received an email of out of the blue from a friend at Rice. It was regarding a poem exchange where you copy and paste the email to a number of your friends such that it propagates throughout the community. The “poem”, they clarify, can really be any sort of text or verse or lyric that has been comforting in hard times. I’d like to share a few of my favorites that students sent me – some from friends, some from strangers.
The Word
by Tony Hoagland
Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,
between “green thread”
and “broccoli” you find
that you have penciled “sunlight.”
Resting on the page, the word
is beautiful, it touches you
as if you had a friend