Poetry Sunday

Unlike most men, I enjoy shopping for groceries. I like finding a good recipe to try, building a shopping list, and scouring the local sources for the right ingredients. I'd never thought about checking out at the grocery store as a metaphor for life, but this neat little poem by Thomas R. Moore sets up the idea nicely ...

Finding Everything

by Thomas R. Moore

Did you find everything you were

looking for? Julie, the magenta-haired

checkout girl, asks, and no, I think,

I didn't find inner peace, or answers to

several questions I've been mulling,

like are we headed for nuclear war and

does the rest of the world think America

has gone bonkers and also, by the way,

I could not find the tofu bacon, and

the chocolate sorbet shelf was empty

(I did find canned pumpkin in aisle four)

but I am silent and smile at Julie who

seems to know what I'm thinking anyway

so I hold back and muse on the view

of the bay this morning when we walked

the dog and the parsnip soup we'll

make for dinner and realize that total

fulfillment probably jades the senses and

the bagger asks if I'd like help today

carrying my groceries out to the car.

I'm not old and decrepit enough (yet) that Kelly and Ahmed and Ashley and Doug and Bianca and all the other checkers at the local Wegmans offer help getting my groceries to the car, but the few moments of friendly contact with our front-end heroes and heroines is often a pleasant part of the day ... whether or not we're headed for nuclear war and an increasingly bonkers America. 

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo