The newscaster speaks
and beneath you
the floor becomes ice
and the world
is speeding
on balding tires
and the moment
is the highway
and all is fishtail
and the brakes
are useless now—
and the cliff so close
and you brace
against nothing
and the only way
to correct a slide
is to turn
into the slide—
Posts Tagged ‘news’
News of the War
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged driving, ice, news, ukraine, war, winter on February 25, 2022| 7 Comments »
Another Reason to Be Kinder
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged kindness, news, tenderness, war on May 17, 2021| 2 Comments »
Somewhere I’ve never been
reaches across the ocean
and wrenches my thoughts.
I don’t try to push it away.
I let the ache in,
let sorrow do its terrible
work. It slices in
deeper than I want it to,
but I do not resist.
All day I think of the small child
being pulled from the rubble.
All day I think of the many hands
reaching for small frightened body.
All day, I am softened by
grief, ravaged into tenderness.
Thanking the Christmas Cactus
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, hope, news, plants on December 29, 2020| 7 Comments »
Tonight, for a moment,
my world shrinks to the size
of the Christmas cactus,
which, despite the storm
that even now blusters outside,
has opened dozens of voluptuous
red blooms, as if to say,
Here I am, blooming midwinter,
and you can do it, too.
There are days when
the news makes me doubt
the value of blooming—
when the headlines alone
twist hope into a crumpled,
unrecognizable heap.
But then some snippet
of beauty finds me—
a scarlet flower,
a handwritten letter—
and breaks any scale
I would use to interpret
the world. It’s not that the terror
goes away, no. But for a few
moments, I am blessed
with the certainty
that even the smallest beauty matters
and that it is my job
to meet life however it appears—
petal, bomb, sweetness, pain—
grateful for my humanness,
vulnerable and tenuous
though it is.
Proxy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, despair, news, writing on July 13, 2020| 9 Comments »
The woman who knows what to write
did not show up today. Perhaps she’s gone
hiking amongst the blue larkspur, or
maybe she’s pulling weeds in the garden.
Perhaps she got a job as a counselor or a priest,
or decided to run for political office.
I wish she’d show up again. Sometimes
it’s not easy to face the blank, to believe
there are any words worth writing. Like today,
when I read about how the abandoned fracking wells
are leaking pollutants. How today will be
the first federal execution in seventeen years.
How there are still children at the border
still crying, “¡Mami!” and “¡Papá!”
Perhaps she was simply so sad
that she went to sit in a corner, quietly,
not to forget, but to find the strength to meet it.
Perhaps she is, even now, trying to conjure
the words that might actually make a difference.
Until We’re All Away from the Edge
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged black lives matter, choices, community, human nature, kindness, news on June 6, 2020| 5 Comments »
for J Unterberg
In the picture on the news,
the little black girl holds a sign
that says, I’m your next president.
And in the grocery store,
the clerk smiles at me from behind her mask
and compliments my dress.
Consumed as I’ve been
with a sorrow so great
it swallowed our country whole,
I had thought it would take an energy
equally great and opposite
to pull me away from the bleak edge.
But then a stranger walked up to my car
where I was parked on the side of the road
to make sure I was okay. And just like that
I felt myself backing away from the edge,
just a bit, just a bit.
It can be so small, what reminds us
who we are—a people who want
to thrive, to live in peace,
a people who are kind to each other
not because we have earned it, but
because kindness is in our nature.
I want to vote for that little girl,
want to help create the just world she rises in.
I want to help someone else
back away from the edge,
just a bit, just a bit, another bit.
The News
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birds, Corona Virus, fear, geese, news, pond, wilderness on March 16, 2020| 6 Comments »
Just as I had settled into doom,
I heard the wild call of the first geese of spring
come screeching through the window.
I leapt up like a woman desperate
for good news—leapt up and ran to the window
in time to see a pair land on the pond,
splashing against the water. They quieted
immediately after alighting. And then,
there was only the sound of me watching them.
How graceful they were in the pond,
the water wrinkled behind them, as if their arrival
were the only news, the only news worth telling.
Especially When It Seems Impossible
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, news, poem, poetry, praise on November 14, 2019| 5 Comments »
Try to praise the mutilated world
—Adam Zagajewski
The cratered earth
and the blood stained shirts
and the men with guns
and the hate sharp words
and the sour rooms
that never see sun
and the rashes, the cancers
the blackened lungs
and still, there are paths
in Ohio woods
where upended trees
show elaborate roots
and the water seeps
in the ancient gorge,
and dead leaves fuel
whole dominions of soil
and though beauty
can be hard to reconcile,
worse to ignore it,
worse to look away,
worse in this mutilated world
to pretend we don’t have
ten thousand times ten thousand
reasons to praise.
Such Luck
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged disasters, luck, news, poem, poetry on August 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Once again the flash flood
misses the house. And the cats
are not found by the mountain lion—
even now they curl on the chair.
The forests around the house
are not claimed by wildfire.
And though my right inner arm
bears a dozen red bites,
none of the mosquitos seem
to be carrying zica.
Yes, it’s a marvelous night,
just think how many things
are going right. Not one
broken bone. No earthquake.
No angry bear. It’s enough to
make you think you’re lucky
no matter what that letter said.
Just look at those stars
and that clear night sky
without even a chance of hurricane,
no tornado, no drought.
Why Every Act of Kindness Matters
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, horse, kindness, mother, news, poem, poetry, truth on March 14, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Mom, she said, is it true? And it wasn’t
that I’d tried to keep the truth from her,
it just never came into conversation,
old horses are sometimes used for glue.
Yes, I said, wishing I could soften the message. It’s true.
She knew its truth already, but don’t we all
sometimes long to be wrong? New tears dammed
in her eyes before they fell. Is that really
the world I belong to? she rued, then buried
her face in the couch. Two hours later,
I thought her same thought as I read the news:
Anti-Semitism. Bribery. Child sexual abuse.
I wanted to hear the stories weren’t true.
Oh world, so broken, still, unglued, I choose you.
Special Edition
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged news, poem, poetry, Thich Nhat Hanh on April 29, 2018| Leave a Comment »
in response to The Good News by Thich Nhat Hanh
Good news. The ant on your toe does not want to bite you.
He is a traveler on the country of your foot, and he is teaching you
about the borders you have drawn around your kingdom.
Yes, the young sapling beside you has died, but there,
beside it, a new sapling is carrying on what it means to be tree.
The good news is that the daffodils, planted by some unknown hand,
have returned, and they bob their yellow fringe in the wind,
their cups filled with unspillable light.
The goldfinches find food beneath the old spruce.
And the meadowlark has turned the fencepost
into a concert hall.
And more good news. You noticed that there was a line drawn
between us and them, and you, with your ardent mind,
you picked up that line and refashioned it into a spiral.
And in this moment, the good news is that the sun is warm
on your shoulders and your eyes feel like closing and you
let them close.
The good news is that despite the passing hours, the passing years,
there is no end to good news waiting to be found
and you are just beginning to understand how infinite this special edition.