Edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine poet laureate.

This favorite poem from a past column is chosen by Patricia Davis of Litchfield, who writes that Bob Brook’s “On Getting Up” is “a jazzy and compassionate depiction of the human condition,” adding that the poem “says so much so simply.”

On Getting Up

By Bob Brooks

Some days it’s all you can do

to get up in the morning.

Some days you get up in the morning –

it’s all you do.

Some days are all morning,

some mornings all day.

Some days it’s all up, all can do.

Some days it’s get up, you, it’s morning.

Days you can get up, you do.

Some days all morning.

Some days all day.

You do all you can do…

All in all, some days

get to you.

Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2011 Bob Brooks. Reprinted from “Unguarded Crossing,” Antrim House, 2011, by permission of Bob Brooks. Please note that the column is no longer accepting submissions; comments about it may be directed to Gibson Fay-LeBlanc at mainepoetlaureate@gmail.com or 228-8263. “Take Heart: Poems from Maine,” an anthology collecting the first two years of this column, is now available from Down East Books.

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