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Saturday, November 3, 2012

Poem: "Watched Kettle"


Watched Kettle


Watched kettle resisting boiling point,
Toaster refusing to relinquish
       Or crisp the still-soft bread it holds,
Silent, stared-at telephone,
Cloudless, rain-withholding sky,
Bobber motionless on sun-struck water
Over baited hook awaiting fish—

All these stubborn deserts of waiting
       Stretch on day by day,
       While meanwhile

The children grow up overnight.


- P. J. Grath
November 3, 2012

2 comments:

Bonnie said...

Beautiful. Your poem mirrors my thoughts about children, as I think about my granddaughters, and how fast they have grown.

P. J. Grath said...

Hi, Bonnie. It was the contrast between different kinds of subjective time that struck me—how so many things we wait for seem to take forever to arrive, while simultaneously time is rushing by in other ways.

I am going to have to make a trip to Nova Scotia one of these days! So many people there I’d like to meet in person, plus an old graduate school friend in Halifax. The writing seems to be on the wall....

Thank you for visiting and commenting.