Poet Jane Hirshfield said "... the feeling I have about poem-writing (is) that it is always an exploration, of discovering something I didn't already know. Who I am shifts from moment to moment, year to year. What I can perceive does as well. A new poem peers into mystery, into whatever lies just beyond the edge of knowable ground."

I bring a different poem to the writing classes each week, not only to inspire but to introduce new poets to the group members.

Pushing Up Pumpkins by Richard (Dick) Greene

This is my last day at 75.
I’m passing the three quarter century mark.
That sounds like something filling up.
I suppose it is in a way,
filling with the well-aged liquor of life,
but it’s more conspicuously an emptying.
My day is draining away
and before too long the bell will toll for me.
I won’t turn into a pumpkin 
but I might end up fertilizing some.
More likely, cemetery grass, unfortunately. 
Cemeteries should be turned into pumpkin patches.
Then we’d be memorialized 
by cheery orange globes
instead of cold stone slabs,
and we could be sure 
that someone would visit our resting place
at least a few times a year
to plant, harvest, cultivate.
Then we might become pumpkin pies
or jack-o-lanterns.
What a lovely afterlife!

~ used with permission of the poet