Poetry & The Pan-Massachusetts Challenge

This weekend my husband will be riding for Team Daisy in the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge to raise money for the Jimmy Fund and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Last year, at the age of sixty, Mike participated in this event for the first time. He and the other proud members of Team Daisy raised $65,ooo!

Team Daisy is named in honor of my friend Daisy Locke. Daisy is a cancer survivor...and a very brave girl indeed! As I wrote at Blue Rose Girls last November: Daisy has shown the adults in her life what courage is all about.

If you'd like to make a contribution in my husband's name, go to the Team Daisy webpage and click on Michael Magliaro. You will be taken to his page at the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge website where you can make an online donation. Mike's goal is to reach $3,600 this year.

NOTE: There is also a Team Daisy page at the PMC website. You can reach my husband's page at the PMC website directly by clicking here.

DAISY LOCKE

I have two poems for Daisy today. One is To the Daisy, which was written by William Wordsworth, and one is an original poem I wrote. The word daisy is really a poem in itself: day's eye. I kept that in mind as I penned my poem.

For Daisy

by Elaine Magliaro

Daisies

burst from their stem tops

like exploding suns

lighting green fields

with their bright-eyed wonder.

To the Daisy

by William Wordsworth

With little here to do or see
Of things that in the great world be,
Sweet Daisy! oft I talk to thee
For thou art worthy,
Thou unassuming commonplace
Of Nature, with that homely face,
And yet with something of a grace
Which love makes for thee!

Oft on the dappled turf at ease
I sit and play with similes,
Loose types of things through all degrees,
Thoughts of thy raising;
And many a fond and idle name
I give to thee, for praise or blame
As is the humour of the game
While I am gazing.

You can read the rest of the poem here.