A Happy Birthday by Ted Kooser

[NP's NOTE: In honor of my brother's birthday, I post the following poem.]

This evening, I sat by an open window

and read till the light was gone and the book

was no more than a part of the darkness.

I could easily have switched on a lamp,

but I wanted to ride this day down into night,

to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page

with the pale gray ghost of my hand.

--

About the author:

Ted Kooser was born in Ames, Iowa in 1939.  He received his B.A. from Iowa State and his M.A. in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  He is the author of ten collections of poetry, including Delights & Shadows (Copper Canyon, 2004); Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison (2000), which won the 2001 Nebraska Book Award for poetry; Weather Central (1994); One World at a Time (1985); and Sure Signs (Pittsburgh, 1980).  His fiction and non-fiction books include Braided Creek: a Conversation in Poetry (Copper Canyon, 2003) written with fellow poet and longtime friend , Jim Harrison; and Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps (2002), which won the Nebraska Book Award for Nonfiction in 2003.  His honors include two NEA fellowships in poetry, a Pushcart Prize, the Stanley Kunitz Prize from Columbia, and a Merit Award from the Nebraska Arts Council.  In the fall of 2004, Kooser was appointed the Library of Congress's thirteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.  He is a visiting professor in the English department of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  He lives on an acreage near the village of Garland, NE, with his wife Kathleen Rutledge, the editor of the Lincoln Journal Star.