I’m no hero.  I’m not wise.
I’ve never been to war.
I have no mental illness.
I’m something of a bore.

But I’ve lost my parents,
I’ve felt pain and grief and loss.
I’ve been in love, and I have seen
the leaves and flowers of the spring
And I’ve felt, beneath my feet,
The warmest earth, the sand and peat,
The softest, greenest moss.

So I clip my toenails, and I floss my teeth
And somewhere in the daily grind
the stuff of poetry I find
In things too often left behind.