Today I'll Only Attend To Small Things

This is an attempt to return to my comfort zone. I have recently frogged around writing for contests and other poets (somewhat academic) with considerable success. Now I'm trying to get back to bluejeans, backyards, porchswings and sparrows poems where my heart lies. How am I doing with this piece? Dewell

Today I’ll Only Attend To Small Things



fix the new poem that craves a comma

deadhead the Joseph’s Coat rosebush



check the oil in the car

sharpen my red carpenter’s pencil



eat a snickerdoodle, sip green tea

bread the sparrows that glean my lawn



close my eyes and count hot air balloons

“howdy” neighbors as they stroll by



check the mail box

hum a simple tune



take a half-nap in the porch swing

dream the taste of our first kiss



remember how lovely it was

doing small things together



before you went away



-Dewell H. Byrd

I like the offering. It is emotional and sentimental without being a sentimental poem (sentimental poems being overly emotional without any concrete substance/details). Well done and thank you for sharing it.

but your poem is broken into couplets, giving the reader a break here and there. I don't know if other list poems do this or not, but I like what you did. You bookended small things: title and ending. . . pulling it all together. Do you think you need the word rosebush if you are deadheading it? I don't think I, the reader, need it. I really like "bread the sparrows" and "howdy neighbors". Would it be remember or remembering? Three lines from the bottom: would you want a dash there? Might make it easy for the reader. Overall: Sweet. Sweet. Pat

Dewell, You gave us trivial. small, daily things that could be mundane and although we all do them, we never think of them in this light.  But, you whomped us up side the head with the BIG "before you went away" at the end.  And yes, it fits into a day, every day, of someone who has had the relationship for years that you painted so subtley.  Nice job.  I liked the "bread the sparrows" but I have never seen a red carpenter's pencil, only yellow ones with black lead. Dennis

about the capenter's pencil. . . . that is unusual among the ordinary things you list. Forgot to flag it for you. The joys of three of us looking at your work. . . . we see the same things and yet, sometimes differently. Helpful, right? Pat