Poetry Friday: suggestion (Mackenzie Connellee)

I’ve been reading Naomi Shihab Nye’s latest anthology, Time You Let Me In (Greenwillow, 2010), featuring 5 poems each by 25 young poets. It’s a wonderful book, and I love the idea of getting to read several poems by each poet. Many times in an anthology, I’ll find a poem I adore, only to discover it’s unlike the rest of that poet’s work. In this anthology, the sampling of each poet makes it easier for me to identify the poets whose work I really want to explore further. One of them is Mackenzie Connellee, and here’s her poem "suggestion."

suggestion

maybe we try too hard to be
remembered, waking to the
glowing yellow disc in ignorance,
swearing that today will be
the day, today we will make

something of our lives. what
if we are so busy searching
for worth that we miss the
sapphire sky and cackling
blackbird. what else is missing?

maybe our steps are too straight
and our paths too narrow and
not overlapping. maybe when
they overlap someone in another
country lights a candle, a couple

resolves their argument, a young
man puts down his silver gun
and walks away.

The Poetry Friday Roundup is at the Stenhouse Blog. Enjoy!

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