WHY I DISCARDED\u00a0MY MANUSCRIPT ON WELLNESS\u00a0AND THE PRESBYTERIAN BOOK OF ORDER<\/p>\n
for Jack Cady (1932-2004)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n I was well on my way to essays As if conspiring, on the edge of vision a smudge Twenty-four words and three couplets later Then came the grateful lover\u2019s remorse: Oh,<\/em> <\/p>\n John L. Wright<\/a> is a retired physician who wrote his first poem in 1988 at the age of 58. His poems have appeared in eleven anthologies including, Floating Bridge Pontoon <\/em>Four, Eight,Ten and Review # 5. He has published three collections: Through an Old Wooden Bowl<\/em>\u00a0<\/a> in 1999 (The Swedish Medical Center Foundation); As Though<\/em> Praying: Poems from Decatur Island<\/em><\/a> in 2003 and The Beginning of Love\u00a0<\/em>in 2005, both self-published by Bluestone Press. \u00a0John and his wife, Lanita, have lived on two wooded acres in Woodway, WA. since 1964; here they have raised two sons, five dogs and too many cats to count; here, too, while gardening or landscaping many of his poems have had their beginning.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WHY I DISCARDED\u00a0MY MANUSCRIPT ON WELLNESS\u00a0AND THE PRESBYTERIAN BOOK OF ORDER for Jack Cady (1932-2004) I was well on my way to essays when you unexpectedly assigned the class a poem. A love poem, you said, twenty-five words or less, … Continue reading
\nwhen you unexpectedly assigned the class a poem.
\nA love poem, you said,
\ntwenty-five words or less, don\u2019t use the word god
\nor the word love, and make it honest.<\/p>\n
\nof green in a wooden bowl\u2014
\nGranny Smith apples my wife bought for our son,
\ncoming home from college.<\/p>\n
\nyou couldn\u2019t budge a word or line I had scribbled
\non that chalky green-board.<\/p>\n
\n where have you been all my life?<\/em>
\nThen poetry moved into my files, onto my shelves.
\nThen my obituary changed.<\/p>\n