Text conversations with my dad.....go a little something like this:

Dad: Sweetsie get chocolate bar or some donuts i got bananas earlier

Me: Okey dokey

Dad: U ROK

Me: 9:30 = American Idol + delicious surprise

Dad: 9:30 = the first day of the rest of my life

Me: I like your attitude

Dad: Ur a crumb donut

Dad: Think about this 2 crumb donuts in a bowl broken up heated up vanilla ice cream carmel topping eat

( I think he thinks that texting never involves punctuation.....?)

How To Be a Poet

BY WENDELL BERRY

(to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.

Sit down. Be quiet.

You must depend upon

affection, reading, knowledge,

skill—more of each

than you have—inspiration,

work, growing older, patience,

for patience joins time

to eternity. Any readers

who like your poems,

doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath

the unconditioned air.

Shun electric wire.

Communicate slowly. Live

a three-dimensioned life;

stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything

that obscures the place it is in.

There are no unsacred places;

there are only sacred places

and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.

Make the best you can of it.

Of the little words that come

out of the silence, like prayers

prayed back to the one who prays,

make a poem that does not disturb

the silence from which it came.