Opinion

National Poetry Month continues, so this week I returned to my pile of saved poems and decided to write about not one, but two: Gwendolyn Brook’s “To the Young Who Want to Die” and Ross Gay’s “Sorrow Is Not My Name.” Ordinarily, I wouldn’t choose to write about two different poems from two different writers at the same time, but the fact is that one would not exist without the other: they are in dialogue with each other. And anyway, they’re both wonderful and very dear to me.

Dear editor:
It isn’t often that Greybull is presented with an opportunity to create a lasting legacy for the city and surrounding communities, something that people generations from now will proudly be able to identify as unique and important to our area. Such is the opportunity recently announced by the 501(c)3 nonprofit Big Horn Basin Dinosaur and Geoscience Museum (BHBDGM). Working together with the Town of Greybull, these two entities are seeking funds to create a dinosaur museum on Greybull Avenue in a building to be constructed adjacent to the Greybull Library and Museum.
The BHBDGM’s goal is to not just display the life-sized casts of these ancient animals but to also illustrate the world they lived in, the history of their excavation and their importance to science. Such a museum would provide significant educational, economic, and social benefits for not just Greybull but surrounding communities as well.

“Love Rainy Day,” “Singing in the Rain” and “April Showers,” I’ve been singing them loudly (in my head) for the past three days.
I know these April showers will bring May flowers; unfortunately, there are mostly dandelions in my lawn. My tulips and daffodils disappeared when we put in the new sidewalks.
I’m sure there isn’t a senior citizen who can’t remember picking those beautiful yellow flowers and taking them to her/his mother as a special gift. Or a mother or grandmother who didn’t give those smiling little kids with a handful of yellow “weeds” a big hug and thank them a thousand times, put them in a glass and set them in the middle of the table. Oh, to be young again! Now we spend hours digging the blasted things out of our lawns.
Although, I will admit, I’ve driven by abandoned houses and seen those yellow weeds and, yes, they look beautiful still.

So many celebrations drown in preparations these days; in fact, often it seems that the preparations are the celebration, and the celebration itself little more than an afterthought, a moment in time, soon over with and forgotten. For that matter, it often seems that the celebration, soon to be over and done with, is more important than that which is celebrated.
Think about weddings; it seems that in our day and age, as marriage itself has come to mean but little to most - and particularly is the awareness lost to many, that marriage as the ordinance of God is a life-long obligation and commitment – all the more preparation, and money, go into planning perfect weddings down to the smallest details, lavish and luxurious celebrations of what are already long time relationships, sometimes even with the parties themselves being very well aware that the relationship might not be long for this world.