Boy, do I have some insightful poetry readers! Yes, President Abraham Lincoln is the hero eulogized by Walt Whitman. The first answer was submitted by MaryClare Maslyn, who will receive a copy of Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness. One of the first poems in this book, The Dance by Siamanto, is about the Armenian genocide. Please read it and let me know what you think.
The three runners-up were Kathy Mahoney, Bob Sisson and Suzanne Levy, who deserve not only recognition (yeay you!) but also a small book of poems for their personal enjoyment. (Each. Oh, c'mon, that would be mean -- not to mention logistically challenging....)
Thank you for reading, and your books are on the way. There will be another contest later in the month, so keep your thinking caps nearby!
Now, back to our regularly scheduled poetry.
Years ago, as I finalized my divorce, I read this poem have kept it tacked to the wall in my office ever since. Sometimes the only way to be alive is to take a risk.
Small Frogs Killed On The Highway
Still,
I would leap too
Into the light,
If I had the chance.
It is everything, the wet green stalk of the field
On the other side of the road.
They crouch there, too, faltering in terror
And take strange wing. Many
Of the dead never moved, but many
Of the dead are alive forever in the split second
Auto headlights more sudden
Than their drivers know.
The drivers burrow backward into dank pools
Where nothing begets
Nothing.
Across the road, tadpoles are dancing
On the quarter thumbnail
Of the moon. They can't see,
Not yet.
by James Wright
courtesy of Poetryconnection.net
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