A bowl of little green turtles

Below is an excerpt from an article on tricycle.com/, an interview with poet Mark Doty. He explains so knowingly how we humans persevere, even after tragedy hits and slaps us down again and again. 

Read the article, but first read this:

“I was walking on Broadway one day in SoHo and came upon an Asian woman who was sitting on the sidewalk selling, of all things, tiny green turtles. She had them contained in a big white enamel bowl, and the little things were climbing over each other trying to get out, then sliding back down into the bowl again once they made it a ways up toward the rim. They were so beautiful—brilliantly green—and seemed so absurdly fragile; how could anything that tiny make it in New York City? 

That’s how poems usually start for me: I begin with a description of some little thing that’s moved or interested me, and then, if I’m lucky, the process of writing teaches me why whatever it is matters. The turtles were such a potent image of ourselves: our incredible human persistence despite our frailty. We want to connect, to love, to move forward—we will climb up the sides of that bowl no matter what!”   

            ---poet, Mark Doty 

As poets, we want to learn and to teach what we see as important about little moments that move us. A good poem will do that.

Have you read any good poems today?