"Laundry"

Maybe I’d get more housework done if I adopted this attitude.

American Life in Poetry: Column 105

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, due out in 2007. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

Prayers needed

My sister-in-law emailed the following to me this morning:

Late last night, one of my closest friend’s daughters was diagnosed with Leukemia. Jake and Kelly’s oldest daughter, Ashlyn, has been just a little off for a few weeks. Jake wanted Kelly to take her to the pediatrician and I encouraged her to ask for a complete blood work up. Foolishly, on my part, thinking that it might reveal a vitamin deficiency or anemia or something. The family will get more information today about the nature of the illness (form) and what to expect in the coming days. Ashlyn has been admitted to the hospital and will remain there for several days.

Please pray for strength for their family, especially Jake and Kelly, and for God’s hand in healing Ashlyn and making her more comfortable.

Name that song

Here are the first lines of the first couple of songs from this morning’s shuffle. Can you name them?

1. “Stars shining bright above you, night breezes seem to whisper ‘I love you.’ ” (Way to go, Justin! It’s “Dream a Little Dream”)

2. “Got dirt, got air, got water and I know you can carry on.” (Carrie wins! It’s “The Good Times” by Modest Mouse)

3. “You walked into my house last night.”

4. “My my, at Waterloo Napoleon did surrender.”

5. “There is nothing that is wrong in wanting you to stay here with me.” (Carrie wins again! It’s “Lay Down Sally” by Eric Clapton”)