Posts in Poetry
The Voracious Reader
Hello, boys and girls, I'm glad you've stopped by.
I've a story to tell. Please give it a try.
For once in the mind of a wee little child
Lived a voracious reader—it was quite wild.
As she would sit down by a stream or a brook,
Clutching the pages of her new favorite book,
The words would take her to far away places
Describing to her brand-new creatures and faces.
For hours a time she would happily sit,
Reading and reading, never wanting to quit.
In a book she could visit castles with moats
Or find Narnia inside a wardrobe with coats,
Meet a mouse on a motorcycle, fast as could be,
See the love of a boy from his favorite tree,
Spy a spider who spun pretty words for a pig,
Meet a family, immortal with one thirsty swig, 
Help a baby bird lost and looking for mother,
Cheer a Grinch's heart grown with love for another.
Many wonders imagined, the tall and the small
But perhaps the most wondrous thing of it all
Is a secret discovered with the growing of age
That years don't diminish the joys of the page.
When becoming adults, as children often do,
They don't have to discard like a dirty old shoe
The imaginations stored deep in their heads;
They can still dream of mysteries nightly in beds.
For whatever the year, if you're young or you're old
Many stories at hand await to be told.
So please know, dear children, you must never quit
The reading of books, not one little bit.
For when you imagine and dream and ponder
Life is filled with all the ways you can wander.

—Kelly Carr
written on March 2, 2012
to honor Dr. Seuss's birthday
and to honor all the children's book authors
who captured my youth with their imaginations







Erasing Melancholy

I stoop to feel the hardened earth beneath my fingertips,

Scoffing at the words I’ve heard professed by sordid lips—

That this dreary cloak of winter days wrapped around my soul

Can be a hibernating balm to my spirit’s gaping hole.

What feels to me antipathy toward the atmospheric pressure

Could become rapt eagerness of spring’s forthcoming weather.

So while the frigid burden weighs enormous on my psyche

I’ll grasp anticipation of warmth erasing melancholy.


—Kelly Carr

February 2010

PoetryKelly Comment