This Is My Call for Apologies by Amy Lingafelter

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend March 20, 2015   This Is My Call for Apologies   Amy Lingafelter

Like seeing a hot air balloon. It’s just like seeing a hot air balloon. No helium or flame or 8 passenger basket. No passengers possibly drinking champagne. No pilot or ballast, nor buoyancy, nor balloonist enthusiast entering national contests. No ballast, I cannot stress this enough, no ballast, no ballast, no ballast. No science! No cause, no one getting involved or getting the blues. No weddings, engagements, company picnics or a back yard party, for who balloons for a back yard party? No one richer than me. Nothing shaped like a monkey or a chili pepper or a bee, or a Volkswagen bug. No brand loyalty. No weddings! No envelope roll-up, not without help, good help on the ground is the most important thing. No prior knowledge of previous passengers, a Duck, a Sheep and a Chicken, nor knowledge of hot air. No flat land to worry about, no splash-n-dash or discreet pilots or pilots having to act discreet, only interfering with the hot air. No jobs like that, struggling to be all day out of the way. No hot air. Nothing in the way.            Copyright © 2015 by Amy Lingafelter. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “Up close, local balloonists would launch from a field near where I used to work, and the science of ballooning and subculture of balloonists became very interesting to me. Like any good librarian in love with miscellany, I read obsessively. From afar, though, it just seems like there’s nothing to it.” —Amy Lingafelter   Amy Lingafelter is one of three poets in the book New Poets, Short Books, Volume III, edited by Marvin Bell (Lost Horse Press, 2009). She is a high school librarian who works and lives in the Chicago area.   Photo credit: Daniel Brown Most Recent Book by Lingafelter   New Poets, Short Books, Volume III (Lost Horse Press, 2009) "Around Us" by Marvin Bell "Sylvia Plath Is in Paris with a Balloon on a Long String" by Amy Newman "The Visitation" by Brigit Pegeen Kelly Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038