I love having my attention
hijacked,
the unpredictable word
engaging me.
A rabbit running across a city street
in the dark.
Someone I love
grabbing my hand.
Finding one of my cats at the door
to greet me.
A student sending me
a thank you.
Running into a forgotten friend
who remembers me.
Reading the Book of Knowledge
“Wonder Questions”.
Discovering what our daughter had planned
each day of our trip.
In a comedy club,
laughing at joke after joke.
After decades of turkey, rediscovering
liverwurst.
Reading up on menopause, then learning
I was pregnant.
Author’s Note: (First published in lexpomo.com, a month-long poetry blog in Lexington, Kentucky.)
Gaby Bedetti hikes, takes photos, plants trees, and sings in several choirs. After grad school, where she co-founded the University of Iowa Museum Bulletin, she started teaching at Eastern Kentucky University. She co-teaches Page-to-Stage: Imagining the Military Experience in Iraq. She married a guy she met at a literature conference in Louisville, and together they raised a couple of kids. Her work has appeared in such journals as Off the Coast, Italian Americana, Poet Lore, and New Literary History. She has written a poem every day in June for the past four years for her town’s poetry blog, lexpomo.com.
A Quiet Courage 