Sam brought this poem to my attention: it is hilarious and poignant and very fitting for Mother’s Day. Or the day after Mother’s Day, as the case may be.<\/p>\n
The Lanyard<\/a> The other day I was ricocheting slowly No cookie nibbled by a French novelist I had never seen anyone use a lanyard She gave me life and milk from her breasts, and taught me to walk and swim, Here is a breathing body and a beating heart, that you can never repay your mother, Sam brought this poem to my attention: it is hilarious and poignant and very fitting for Mother’s Day. Or the day after Mother’s Day, as the case may be. The Lanyard by Billy Collins from The Trouble With Poetry: And Other Poems The other day I was ricocheting slowly off the blue walls of this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=991"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":998,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions\/998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nby Billy Collins
\nfrom The Trouble With Poetry: And Other Poems<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n
\noff the blue walls of this room,
\nmoving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
\nfrom bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
\nwhen I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
\nwhere my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.<\/p>\n
\ncould send one into the past more suddenly\u2014
\na past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
\nby a deep Adirondack lake
\nlearning how to braid long thin plastic strips
\ninto a lanyard, a gift for my mother.<\/p>\n
\nor wear one, if that\u2019s what you did with them,
\nbut that did not keep me from crossing
\nstrand over strand again and again
\nuntil I had made a boxy
\nred and white lanyard for my mother.<\/p>\n
\nand I gave her a lanyard.
\nShe nursed me in many a sick room,
\nlifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
\nlaid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
\nand then led me out into the airy light<\/p>\n
\nand I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
\nHere are thousands of meals, she said,
\nand here is clothing and a good education.
\nAnd here is your lanyard, I replied,
\nwhich I made with a little help from a counselor.<\/p>\n
\nstrong legs, bones and teeth,
\nand two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
\nand here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
\nAnd here, I wish to say to her now,
\nis a smaller gift\u2014not the worn truth<\/p>\n
\nbut the rueful admission that when she took
\nthe two-tone lanyard from my hand,
\nI was as sure as a boy could be
\nthat this useless, worthless thing I wove
\nout of boredom would be enough to make us even.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"