Ron Bloodworth, 4/5/2010

Current Occupation: Retired/Volunteer Work/Occasional Professional Training

Former Occupation: Public School Educator/Counselor and Public Health Educator

Brief bio, up to 100 words: Ron worked in public schools for 29 years as a teacher and school counselor and then 5 years in Public Health as Oregon’s Youth Suicide Prevention Coordinator. Once free of punching the clock in 2003, he completed 2 semesters of an MFA in Writing program at Pacific University. Ron likes to hang out in coffee shops with other poets and is part of 2 poetry groups in Portland, OR. He enjoys the good life with his partner of 25 years in Northeast Portland.

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Most days I go unshaven.

By noon, the mailman has come and gone.

By three, kids are on the street

on their way back home from school.

Tuesday’s, recycling gets picked up

and on Friday’s, Mexican yard crews

descend upon the neighborhood, their mowers

and weed eaters throwing up a terrible racket

and then—just as quickly—they, too, move on.

Eyes on the clock, I remember all the years

at work spent looking out a window

trying to imagine the life I am living now.