At our last Recent Read gathering, my friend Margaret introduced me to Pulitzer Prize winner and thirteenth US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. I find that I begin reading one poem and then the next and then the next…
The following poem is from his latest book, Kindest Regards: New and Selected Poems, ©2018 by the author, published by Cooper Canyon Press, p 205 and also featured on the jacket back.
Hoarfrost
Two days of an icy prairie fog and every blade of grass, and twig, and branch, and every stretch of wire, barb, post and staple, is a knot or a thread in a lace of the purest white. To walk is like finding your way through a wedding dress, the sky inside it cold and satiny; no past, no future, just the now all breathless. Then a red bird, like a pinprick, changes everything.
We didn’t have a hoarfrost this morning, but I did see a red bird … a cardinal.
