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from the issue of April 5, 2007
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American Life in Poetry
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
I've talked often in this column about how poetry can hold a mirror up to life, and I'm especially fond of poems that hold those mirrors up to our most ordinary activities, showing them at their best and brightest. Here Ruth Moose hangs out some laundry and, in an instant, an everyday chore that might have seemed to us to be quite plain is fresh and lovely.
Laundry
All our life
so much laundry;
each day's doing or not
comes clean,
flows off and away
to blend with other sins
of this world. Each day
begins in new skin,
blessed by the elements
charged to take us
out again to do or undo
what's been assigned.
From socks to shirts
the selves we shed
lift off the line
as if they own
a life apart
from the one we offer.
There is joy in clean laundry.
All is forgiven in water, sun
and air. We offer our day's deeds
to the blue-eyed sky, with soap
and prayer,
our arms up, then lowered
in supplication.
Reprinted from "Making the Bed," Main Street Rag Press, 2004, by permission of the author. Copyright (c) 1995 by Ruth Moose, whose latest book of poetry, "The Sleepwalker," Main Street Rag, is due out in 2007. This weekly column is supported by the UNL Department of English, The Poetry Foundation and The Library of Congress. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
GO TO: ISSUE OF APRIL 5
ARTS HEADLINES FOR APRIL 5
Sheldon director curates 'Sculptors on Paper' exhibit featured at the Sheldon
American Life in Poetry
Chiara to conclude Brahms series April 10
'China Blue' opens April 6
Collaboration brings 'The Train' to Lied April 11
Driesbach announces Sept. 20 resignation
Jewish author to visit UNL, offers April 12 public reading April 12
'Masterworks of Masons' concert is April 14
Quartet of student artists featured in MFA Thesis II exhibition
University Theatre wraps semester with 'subUrbia'
732771S36936X
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