Welcome to Poetically Yours. This segment highlights poets from northern Illinois. Today’s episode features Carol Obertubbesing.
Obertubbesing grew up in Union City, New Jersey and saw the New York skyline every day of her life until she left. In 1969, she became part of the first coed class at Princeton University. She said that was the defining event of her life.
The Princeton Alumni Weekly published an article she wrote about her experience as one of the first women to attend Princeton. She returned to Princeton almost every year for reunions and other events and now serves as Regional Vice President for the Class of 1973. In 2019, she organized a national conference held in Chicago to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Undergraduate Coeducation at Princeton. Last year, the University gave her the Distinguished Service to Princeton Award.
Obertubbesing has served on the Board of the Woodstock Folk Festival since 1993 and has organized the festival’s virtual performances for the past two years.
She’s worked in public tv and radio. She was the director of Outreach at WGBH, and at PBS she was the associate director of the Elementary and Secondary Service. She said she is an avid listener of public radio.
Obertubbesing is celebrating Valentine’s Day with her poem “Ode to Love.”
Love is the mother who swaddles us in a blue flannel blanket
Who sings us a lullaby when we fear the monsters under the bed
Who makes the best apple pie - the one we still taste when we are old
Who knows the right thing to say when everything else has been said.
Love is the father who teaches us to tie our shoes
Who takes us to the park and teaches us to throw and catch
Who works 7 nights a week so Santa can visit
Who gives us the foundation on which our dreams can hatch.
Love is the friend who picks us up when we fall and cry
Who makes us want to dance when we see their face
Who shares their fears and secrets and guards ours
Who shines in our life with a loving grace.
Love is the sax player on the New York street corner
Who plays all night in a dingy bar
Who plays the songs that make us weep
Who takes us both deep and far.
Love is Rick saying to Ilsa, “We’ll always have Paris”
It is Scarlett saying, “After all, tomorrow is another day”
It is Fred swirling Ginger across the dance floor
It is the little tramp hearing “Smile” as he travels on his way.
Love is the bird who returns each spring to our window
Who teaches us what it means to fly
Who shows us the fragility of life
Who teaches us that even good ones die.
Love is the mountain trying to touch the stars
It is the ocean kissing the sky
It is the river taking us to some far off place
It is the all, the everything, and the why.
Love is the song that somehow you knew before you were born
It is the music that touches your soul
It is the sound that makes you dance all night
It is the life-running thread that makes you whole.
Love is when you tousle my hair and caress my cheek
Love is when you make all the world right
Love is when you bring magic and wonder
Love is when you touch my soul at night.
Love is you who are my sun, my moon, my sky
Love is you who hold me tight and never say never
Love is your smile in the morning and your kiss at night
Love is what I feel for you in my heart - forever.
