Poetry Thursday: Sundays are for Folk Music and Yoga

This week's prompt for Poetry Thursday was to give a poetry reading for yourself. I could have chosen one of my favorites from Gwendolyn Brooks, but I decided to go with one of my own poems instead. My reason for participating in Poetry Thursdays was to reawaken my own creativity, so I thought it might be a good idea to look at my body of work thus far and see if there was anything worth reawakening.

My first thought as I read through my tattered notebook was, "Oy! What dreck!" I'm so glad that I had the forethought to date my poems as I wrote them; it is a comfort to look at the dates and remind myself that the bulk of this drivel was written by an 18-year-old who thought she was oh-so-cool. Still, I managed to find a few that I liked.

The one I am sharing today felt right for a couple of reasons. I like the rhymes I was able to make and the way they sound when read aloud. Also, I like the way the poem ends. In reading through my other poems, I noticed that in most of them I started strong but tacked on a simplistic closing line. This poem is one of the few where I feel that the closing line fits.

Enough navel-gazing! Here is my poem:

SUNDAYS ARE FOR FOLK MUSIC AND YOGA

Sundays are for Mary Travers
And meditation,
Contemplating the "education"
Of the young man
Down the hall.
They're for wishing to be rich
But knowing that you're poor
And liking it all the more
Because of the headaches
You don't have.
Sundays are for lovely breezes,
Cheap red wines and cheaper cheeses
Consumed while dancing barefoot in the park
Until long after the kids
Have all gone home.
You plan your next moment
Or the rest of your life
As dreamily as a bride
Choosing her trousseau.
That's what Sundays are for.
Never ask for more.

--Dani Sanders, 12 Feb 1984