Poet's Platform Column | 27 April 08 by Janet Nesler | The Scioto Voice | Wheelersburg, Ohio

THE LITERATE CAT Are you learning definitions, nestled between Webster’s z and a? Perusing rows of synonyms, lying on pages of Roget? Stretched out on newspaper columns, are you gleaning turns of phrase? Is your head propped up on the Bible, absorbing Psalms of praise? I guess you’re just a writer’s cat, pouncing on words where they occur, or could it be . . . you want to stay close to the hand that strokes your fur? Nancy Hampton Edgewood, KY   Haiku things of wild I love fast horses cats and roses and wild gypsy hearts Margi Russell Portsmouth   The Schoolhouse Around the bend a schoolhouse sits. More sons have worn its benches and Gone on to work the rifle pits Than those that lived to learn their way Around the world in a peaceful day; So many buried in the sand… A generation lost, destroyed, That learned to speak, to read, to write; Their lives with farms to be employed. In this old house they learned these things, But vanished where the Angel sings; Mere faces staring at the night. The school is void of children now, Where they learned lessons ‘ere the war. A man approaches, wipes his brow, And hears his young son’s cheery voice, The playful, childish, schoolhouse noise; With hope he twists the knob once more. But silence, as his dead son lies, Now causes him to realize, And, weeping, leave it as before. Kenton Sena Hebron, KY