Great Reading Last Night

Last night I read some poems at the Arlington Arts Center with the other winners of the Moving Words Series. We were supposed to read inside the building in a room with huge stained glass windows, but the power was out for some reason. So we moved the reading outside and sat under the trees--it was much nicer that way!

Thanks to the Arlington Cultural Affairs Division for organizing the Moving Words program. It puts poems on every bus in northern VA all year round--we all need more poetry these days especially in the most mundane of settings!

Here is my poem that appears on the buses in northern VA through June:

Folk Art

Because the reeds have to be soaked first,
because she'll weave them
in and out for hours, because the tips of the fingers,
exposed to water and reed,
dry out, the skin's oils going into the basket,
what they call folk art, we call
heart's blood, eagle-eye, compass and clock.
In our house, because of this,
we can say our mother's knowledge of making
sits on the table, full of fruit.