A Valentine for Ernest Mann
You can't order a poem like you order a taco.Walk up to the counter, say, "I'll take two"and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.
Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, "Here's my address,
write me a poem," deserves something in reply.So I'll tell you a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadowsdrifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.
Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn't understand why she was crying.
"I thought they had such beautiful eyes."
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he reinvented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hidingin the eyes of the skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.
Maybe if we reinvent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.And let me know.
--Naomi Shihab Nye
见过这位诗人，她说她最感谢那个带她认识诗歌的小学老师，她记得那个老师的课室里总是导出都是诗歌。
前段时间，他们小学同学聚会，她见回儿时的朋友，她跟朋友说：“你还记得我们的老师吗？她教我们的诗歌。”同学说：“什么诗歌？”
“你不记得吗？”Naomi惊呆了。
“我只记得她的课室里有很多很多的石头。”同学说。她的这位同学后来成为了一个地质学家。
也许天赋和命运冥冥中早有注定，你只需要出现在对的地方，静静等待。
