Horsing around with Sara

Hold it! Do not fire off a comment telling me that if I want to stump for Ms. Palin I should learn how to spell her name. Get off your political high horse, dead horse, dark horse or candidate you are horsing around with. I do not talk or write about politics because I am shamefully dumb about the political and governmental process. It is ignorant , uniformed voters like me who put crooks and scoundrels in office. Jean Shepherd, that great radio philosopher, was right. If you don't know what you're doing, don't vote. As for what this post is about, I quote a past president who got in trouble for horsing around with the truth: Let me make this perfectly clear. I refer not to the Governor woman, her political candidacy, her appearances on late night TV or anything else about her. I speak of another, very different Sara who has no "H" on the end of her name. She did but she dropped it. Borrowing a line from yet another commader in chief, who horsed around in the oval office, I did not have sex with that woman. I couldn't because she died when I was three years old. My love for her is pure. The lady's name is Sara Teasdale. She wrote poems. One of them made me fall eternally in love with her when I discovered it thrity-five or more years ago. Maybe forty-five. It was a long time ago. I believe this lovely little verse says something simply beautiful and beautifully simple to all of us, even though Sara named it...





Advice to a Girl
No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed;
Lay that on your heart,
My young angry dear;
This truth, this hard and precious stone,
Lay it on your hot cheek,
Let it hide your tear.
Hold it like a crystal
When you are alone
And gaze in the depths of the icy stone.
Long, look long and you will be blessed:
No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed.


You can have your Emily Dickinson. Give me Sara. I have high hopes of meeting her in heaven. We will sit on a cloud and I will read her verses to her with my best radio voice. She will say Oh Cliffie, my words never sounded better."