Joan Blessing offered me this photo of her granddaughter, Lydia, tasting the breeze on a family trip to Hawaii. Joan offered another prompt possibility at the same time, but I fell in love with Lydia and decided to write her an ode--because odes have no downturn, no dark underbelly and for Lydia I wanted a poem all celebration. The right fit, I think, for a little girl who's clearly mastered the art of enjoying the world. The whole poem's on the Tupelo web site here. But this is the way it starts:

Ode to Lydia, Who I’ve Never Actually Met

You who know the art of celebration

and have probably just announced

to everyone on Kamehameha Highway: This

is the best day ever. You're the girl

who hugs each gift,

and says, voice aching with gratitude,

I needed this. Outside the window,

Hawaii flies past and

your childhood too, but

you’re a girl with a gift for tasting

the colors of a brilliant day. 

I used to have a kind of bias against odes. Something about being afraid to sound too much as if I were cheer leading or maybe it was discomfort with the second person. All those chirpy you's. Then in the spring I read Neruda and decided I was obviously missing the point. I've got a long way to go before I reach any territory contiguous with Neruda, but I'm willing now to start the trip. 

Thank you to everyone who's supporting me and offering ideas. I am so grateful to you all. I still have 20 days to go, though. So like the greedy cuss I am, I'm asking for more. My donor page can be found here.  (In other words it hasn't moved.) You can leave me a prompt here on the blog, on the donor page itself in the note they ask you to write, or at my email address.