Covid Days
Art: Philip Geiger
“And then it is another day and another and another, but I will not go on about this because no doubt you too have experienced time.”
Roadtrips
How I Learned Bliss
by Oliver De La Paz
I spied everything. The North Dakota license,
the “Baby on Board” signs, dead raccoons, and deer carcasses.
The Garfields clinging to car windows—the musky traces of old coffee.
I was single-minded in the buzz saw tour I took through
the flatlands of the country to get home. I just wanted to get there.
Never mind the antecedent. I had lost stations miles ago
and was living on cassettes and caffeine. Ahead, brushstrokes
of smoke from annual fires. Only ahead to the last days of summer
and to the dying theme of youth. How pitch-perfect
the tire-on-shoulder sound was to mask the hiss of the tape deck ribbons.
Everything. Perfect. As Wyoming collapses over the car
like a wave. And then another mile marker. Another.
How can I say this more clearly? It was like opening a heavy book,
letting the pages feather themselves and finding a dried flower.
Anaïs Nin
Anaïs Nin, LA Times
I was decluttering my office this week and stubbled upon an old copy of The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume Two. It happens to be a well-loved library book that has been with me for three decades and as many countries. I’m not even sure how I ended up with a library book from a state I’ve never lived in (?) but somewhere along the line it became mine and has survived the various edits I’ve made to my library over the years.
And yet, I don’t remember having read it. Why do I keep it? I’m not sure. But a clue is the post it note I found stuck in the middle with this quote:
- Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
Today's poem is by Anaïs Nin. It’s brief and to the point - and I think good way to kickstart the new year.
Risk
by Anaïs Nin
And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to blossom.
Perhaps the World Ends Here
Carrie Mae Weems - Untitled, from The Kitchen Table Series, 1990
Perhaps the World Ends Here
by Joy Harjo
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
You Are Here To Risk It All
Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.
- Louise Erdich, The Painted Drum
Alone
Les Goodman
***
Alone
by Jack Gilbert
I never thought Michiko would come back
after she died. But if she did, I knew
it would be as a lady in a long white dress.
It is strange that she has returned
as somebody's dalmatian. I meet
the man walking her on a leash
almost every week. He says good morning
and I stoop down to calm her. He said
once that she was never like that with
other people. Sometimes she is tethered
on their lawn when I go by. If nobody
is around, I sit on the grass. When she
finally quiets, she puts her head in my lap
and we watch each other's eyes as I whisper
in her soft ears. She cares nothing about
the mystery. She likes it best when
I touch her head and tell her small
things about my days and our friends.
That makes her happy the way it always did.
Reasons to stay alive
Lora Mathis
“The key is in accepting your thoughts, all of them, even the bad ones. Accept thoughts, but don’t become them. Understand for instance, that having a sad thought, even having a continual succession of sad thoughts, is not the same thing as being a sad person. You can walk through a storm and feel the wind but you know you are not the wind.
Hope isn’t about waiting for a hypothetical future. Hope is finding the goodness in the dark and protecting it like a flame.
”
Some Nights
Marie Grace Soriano
***
Some Nights
by Kate Baer
Some nights she walks out to the
driveway where the lilacs bloom and
lies down on the warm pavement even
though the neighbors will see and wonder
what kind of woman does such things.
There she stares up at the slender moon
and thinks about the baby albatross filled
with discarded spoons or the time a friend
asked what she was working on these days
and she answered, “Who has the time?”
even though she meant something else
entirely.
Across the lawn the crickets sing while the
earth lets out its tired breath and wanders
through the trees to greet her.
***
The Journey
***
The Journey
by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Have a good weekend.
Happy Fourth of July!
I hope your weekend includes swimming
and fishing and catching turtles
and laughing
and taking walks
and watching fireworks
and eating s’mores
and smacking mosquitos.
Go Deeper
__
You’re not supposed to be happy all the time. Life hurts and it’s hard. Not because you’re doing it wrong, but because it hurts for everybody. Don’t avoid the pain. You need it. It’s meant for you. Be still with it, let it come, let it go, let it leave you with the fuel you’ll burn to get your word done on this earth.
- excerpt from Untamed by Glennon Doyle
