Verse Portraits: July 2012

This began as a game some bloggers played in 2008, to write about people who'd made an impact, in the same number of words as one's age, every day for a year. I did them less often and went on longer, adding one word each birthday. I stopped in 2016 and incorporated them into my main poetry blog. In 2019 I resumed the project and gave it its own blog again, with a new name, where it may unfold at its own (slow, intermittent) pace. I've labelled these verse portraits, but they're more like quick sketches: mere glimpses, impressions....

Saturday 7 July 2012

As I Drive Away

As I drive away from the park

where I've been sitting

looking at trees, and writing,

I see him squatting

atop a wooden table

in the gazebo near the pond.

He wears a hooded jacket;

a small back-pack clings

to his hunched shoulders.

It's only 4:15. Already

the cold hunkers down

and the slow mist comes in.

I wouldn't like to be homeless

tonight, I think, shivering

as I drive away.

[Poem #94]

Shared, years later, in Writers' Pantry #37 at Poets and Storytellers United.