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      February 19, 2009On Attending a High School GraduationJoe Mills

      Looking at them

      clustered together
      in their black robes,
      waiting for their names
      to be called,
      waiting to become
      more distinct
      versions of themselves,
      I whisper véraison
      and if it makes you
      uncomfortable to consider
      these boys and girls
      in terms of ripeness,
      the fullness of fruit
      waiting to be picked,
      that’s understandable,
      because after all,
      if we’re honest,
      there’s always something
      slightly unnerving
      about walking a vineyard
      and casting a calculating eye
      at all those vines
      waiting to be thinned
      all those grapes
      waiting to be harvested,
      all that fruit
      waiting to be crushed
      transformed and packaged
      for our future pleasures.

      from #29 - Summer 2008

      Joe Mills

      “In college, I signed up for a poetry workshop because it was in the afternoon. For the first assignments, I wrote lines like, ‘Spring flowers raise their sleepy heads / to smell the dewy freshness.’ One day the professor commented that he didn’t know why he was bothering since none of us would write past the age of 25. In my twenties, I was writing to prove him wrong. In my 40s, I’m writing to give my thoughts and life shape.”

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