Poem in Your Pocket Day

The Academy of American Poets encourage people to carry a poem with them and share it with other throughout the day.

I had originally thought to use a poem provided for this year's celebration by Poets.org:

Song of Myself, I by Walt Whitman

I Celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

I really liked the opening stanza to this poem. But then I picked up Christine Hppermann's Poisoned Apples and read the poem To My Sheep, Wherever You Are. The last two stanzas are great!

But I'm happy now. I have a new job
at the library, where all the books are arranged
so they're easy to find. Even then there are no
guarantees, which is why I steal my favorites
and stack them beside my bed. I keep them

safe from the man who likes to read
in the tub, the toddler with the Sharpie marker,
the woman who stands at the circulation desk
telling me she's looked everywhere. Really,
she doesn't know what happened, it's just
gone.

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