Poem-a-Day: #29

retrievers frolic–
make friends with Lake Michigan,
forgive its coldness?

–Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved

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I had a wonderful poetry event at the Evanston Public Library today celebrating the winning poets of the Jo-Anne Hirshfield Memorial Poetry Award. It was just so cool to see a room full of people of all ages come together to have fun with poems. I’ll write more about it in May and point you to some of the winning poems!

After the event, I walked the six blocks to Lake Michigan. It started raining, but when I got to the lake, there were several bundled up people there with their dogs. It was a sandy swimming-type beach, but the only swimmers were a couple of Golden retrievers, who joyfully bounded into the lake to fetch sticks. I just stood there in the rain, watching them.

On the way back to my hotel, I stopped in at Whole Foods to get some tomato-basil soup and some salad and jalapeno cornbread (OK, OK, some international cookies, too). Whole Foods at 5 p.m. on a Sunday is not a good place to be. As I shuffled along trying to get around carts and some woman struggling endlessly to put a lid on her salad container, I kind of wished to be a dog fetching sticks in Lake Michigan.

6 Responses

  1. Laura,
    I can’t believe I found you! I just checked out one of your books for the first time while I was at the library last Wednesday, Chatter, Sing, Roar, Buzz! I love how you give voice to the animals…the chimpanzee one is my fav from this book!

  2. Laura,
    I can’t believe I found you! I just checked out one of your books for the first time while I was at the library last Wednesday, Chatter, Sing, Roar, Buzz! I love how you give voice to the animals…the chimpanzee one is my fav from this book!

  3. I envy you your lake time; we lived right on a lake once & it was just wonderful. I think you’ve captured well the dog experience, but also Whole Foods!

  4. I envy you your lake time; we lived right on a lake once & it was just wonderful. I think you’ve captured well the dog experience, but also Whole Foods!

  5. Laura,

    Like your haiku! My daughter’s Yellow Lab LOVES the water. It’s difficult to get him to come out once he’s in.

  6. Laura,

    Like your haiku! My daughter’s Yellow Lab LOVES the water. It’s difficult to get him to come out once he’s in.

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