Poetry Friday - It's a Lollygag Day

A long black feather.....

Well, I'm moving from melancholy into a meandering mood - just feel like going somewhere but nowhere in particular. Know the feeling? It's a funny one - not sad - just wanting to move the way a stick in water moves, easy with the currents and the eddies. That's it - I'm in a see-where-the-stream-takes-me mood.

Quite awhile ago I wrote a poem that didn't manage to persuade my editor that it would make a good picture book. The poem was kind of like that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry and George decide that they will write a TV pilot about doing nothing, because that's what life is like. And this poem is like that, too - it's a doing-nothing poem. I think sometimes kids are too busy, too rushed, too scheduled. Anyway, I thought I'd post a few verses of this poem - the mood matches the moment.


Do you like to lollygag?
Do you like to dawdle?
Do you like to doodle
and noodle around?

Is that what you like to do?
Well, I do, too.

I like to fritter
and wile away the day,
look up at the white clouds
and spin and get dizzy,
look down at the ants
who are way too busy.

Do you like to dink about,
find a few treasures --
a penny on the sidewalk,
a long, black feather?
Hum-diddle-dum some,
and zum-zum-zum some
under your breath?

Is that what you like to do?
Well, I do, too.

I like to dilly-dally
doing nothing much.
Kick a rock with one foot,
kick it with the other,
gather up more rocks
and throw them in a puddle.

Do you like to wander
and ramble in a daze.,
ambling and wondering
if birds are ever late....
Do birds know how to mosey?
Do they rush? Do they worry?
Do you like to wonder
if birds are in a hurry?

Is that what you like to do?
Well, I do, too.

I like to listen
to the hot buzz sounds
of bees flying by me
as I lie on the ground.
I like to whistle
through a green blade of grass
and make a crow cackle
and make his wings flap,
and watch how he glides
with his feet tucked back....

Well, it just went on from there. Way too long for a poem about doing nothing. My editor was right - even so, I sometimes love a poem that goes nowhere. I think we're all a little fond of those. We take them out on our go-nowhere days, and they please us, and we fold them up & put them in our pockets as we go for a walk, heading nowhere in particular.

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You can find today's Poetry Round-Up over at Kelly Herold's Crossover. Be sure to see what other people have posted.