Poetry Corner Mondays

To make your Mondays just a little more enjoyable (especially now that Lie to Me is going on hiatus until mid-November), I have created what I am referring to as Olivia's Poetry Corner Mondays. Every week I will be sharing one of my favorite poems from one of my favorite poets. For those of you rolling your eyes in an exaggerated manner, I know who you are. And I'm not pleased.

I am implementing this new idea just in time for the House premiere next Monday (at 8pm on FOX!) with the hopes that the day everyone loves to hate will become cause for celebration. As if we even needed House.

So here it is, my poem for this week:

The River Styx, Ohio
-by Mary Oliver-

We drove through October, Grandmother pointing at cows;
Mother, bifocaled, squinting at maps for a crossroad.
We came instead to the River Styx, Ohio.

Dead leaves fell ruffling like an ugly lace
Down the brown hillsides, past some empty buildings.
We left the car and wandered through a field,
Three ladies pausing in indifferent space.

Some cows drank from a creek, and lurched away.
Whoever named the place learned the hard lesson,
I'd guess, without much fanfare or delay.
Farms to both sides shook, bankrupt, in the wind.

We hope for magic; mystery endures.
We look for freedom, but the measure's set.
There was a graveyard, but we saw no people.
We went back to the car.

Dim with arthritis, time, the muddied seasons,
Grandmother poised in the back seat again,
Counting the cows. My mother's tightening fingers
Scratched at the roads that would take us home. On the wheel
I tensed my knuckles, felt the first stab of pain.