A Day In The Life Of A Poet

Yesterday, a wonderful audience of 6th thru 10th grade at MacLaren Charter School here in Colorado Srings. Afterwards, a 6th grade student asked me if I wanted to hear one of her poems and I said yes. She said, "First I was a seed, and then I sprouted, and then I became a flower, now I'm a seed again." I praised her for the lovely words and the idea within them, and then her mother arrived and she hurried away before I could get her name. And driving home Rumi's words came to mind, "For ten thousand years I was a mineral. The I was eaten by a plant and for ten thousand years I was a plant. Until I was eaten by an animal, and for ten thousand years I was an animal, until I was eaten by a man. Note, how Rumi's poem dead ends with death by man. But the girl's poem continues the life cycle.