If I were to write a poem

If I were going to write a poem, it would have to have coffee in it. Coffee is the prime morning mover. It's the Alpha. It's another word for mojo. A poem would start with coffee, for sure.

And speaking about mojo, a poem I wrote would have to have Muddy Waters. His mojo working has been tickling my eardrums and soul, rocking them like they were in a hammock.

If I were going to write a poem, it should have a hammock in it, absolutely. It's the spring breeze and warm sunshine on the skin season of hammocks. It would also have to include some cut grass. Maybe cutting grass, with some reference to pull-starting the lawnmower for the first time in the spring--that rite of passage, requiring faith, luck and extra elbow grease to wake the mower from its seasonal slumber.

Hammocks, though a present-day obsession, are also a remembering back yards past--getting dumped from our hammock as a kid and getting the wind knocked out of me for the first time. Another way to get brained was playing on the monkey bars.

If I were to write a poem it would have to have monkey bars. Both the kind you played on and the book by Matthew Lippman, which is the kind you play in. Because I saw that today was Lippman's birthday and picked up "Monkey Bars," and it made me think, this is the kind of shit I need to spend my time reading, and re-reading, and writing.

That poem would have to include the Nationals because it is spring training and we're a buzz with the Nats, with tickets for Davey Johnson's boys' home opener against the Reds. When I'm rocking my Nats hat and see the Curly W in the rear view mirror taking the girls to school, it curls a soul smile.

If I were to write a poem today, it would have to include running, since we've had a return to spring running and racing and the Rise Up Runners. It would have to include longboard skateboarding, with the girls and the dogs around the neighborhood and the sound the wheels make cruising on the road.

A poem would have to include pale ale and cherry blossoms, the Bay Bridge and the D.C. waterfront. It would have to include dock bars and mulch and Langston Hughes writing down the blues in verse.

Man, that's a lot of stuff. If I were to write a poem this morning I'd have to unpack my consciousness, empty out my mind into words I haven't thought about yet and hope it comes across. Yeah. Sure glad I'm not writing a poem this morning.