Day 18--National Poetry Month--Poem-in-Your-Pocket-Day--Couplets--Skin--Gate of the Year

Today is Poem-in-your-Pocket Day. If you want to know more about that, go here. I wrote this one before (and after) a shower, trying not to get too much water on it. Don't go there. Just read the poem. And for Heaven's sake, keep a cool poem in your pocket today. (A song is a poem too, you know.)

SKIN
My skin doesn't fit on my form anymore
It's wrink'ly and loose where it wasn't before

There are bits poking out that should probably be
Inside where the crevices now are on me.

Things once that were firm, now are hopelessly saggy
I feel like an elephant, lumb'ring and baggy

But as per manufacturer's specs, if my skin
Is still doing its job and keeping things in 

I cannot complain much about how it jiggles
If guts are inside then there's still time for giggles

With my entrails still en and my extrails vice versa
Skin protects me from viruses, bacteria, and mersa

Though I can't help bemoaning the dastardly truth
That wrinkles immediately trumped zits, forsooth!

© 2019 by H. Linn Murphy

This is a poem I really love by Minnie Louise Haskins called GOD KNOWS. It has a rich past. If you'd like to know more about it, try here. I'm keeping this poem in my pocket today like Queen Elizabeth II did.

 God Knows 

(Commonly called GATE OF THE YEAR)

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East. 

So heart be still:
What need our little life
Our human life to know, 
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife
Of things both high and low, 

God knows. His will

Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision, 
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.

Then rest: until 
God moves to lift the veil 
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life's stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise
God's thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.

^{©1908 by M. Louise Haskins}