If You Can't Beat 'em, Prose 'em

Cincinnati is the absolute worst place for people with allergies. The city is situated in a deep valley, surrounded by hills on one side and the muddy Ohio River on the other side. The springs are rainy and full of pollen. Mix it all together and the city turns into a deep stew of sinus oppression. It's torture. Torture I tell you!! But, instead of crying all spring long, I've decided to celebrate the unavoidable:-)

Thanks to our 15th Poet Laureate Charles Simic for adding a bit of peotic flare to my view of these antagonists of allergy season...Enjoy an ode to Dandilions!


Dandelions
BY Charles Simic

We were fabulously lucky.
We became dandelions.
Before we were even born
We kept wishing to be dandelions.
Next we found ourselves traveling
Out of the great unknown.
We rode down in a train
Sixteen coaches long,
We sat prim and proper In our golden yellow dresses.
Others came as black widows,
Little monkeys, and red birds,
And of course many ants,
Snuggled together and looking glum.

Rocking the Scrubs

Getting to spend time with my beautiful doctor cousin today gave me so much respect for her profession. I mean...she saves lives on a daily. Pretty impressive stuff. So, in tribute to her and all of the doctors that rock it out everyday, check out this great Anne Sexton poem.

Doctors
BY Anne Sexton

They work with herbs
and penicillin
They work with gentleness
and the scalpel.
They dig out the cancer,
close an incision
and say a prayer
to the poverty of the skin.
They are not Gods
though they would like to be;
they are only a human
trying to fix up a human.
Many humans die.
They die like the tender,
palpitating berries
in November.
But all along the doctors remember:
First do no harm.
They would kiss if it would heal.
It would not heal.

If the doctors cure
then the sun sees it.
If the doctors kill
then the earth hides it.
The doctors should fear arrogance
more than cardiac arrest.
If they are too proud,
and some are,
then they leave home on horseback
but God returns them on foot.