Dear Addie

Dear Addie, young child, don’t be fooled or benighted—
I’ll tell you the truth so you know,
And have in your heart all that schoolishness righted,
And grasp wonder well as you grow.
The breeze doesn’t blow from here to there,
Like a rivulet wand’ring at will;
The earth rolls around underneath all that air,
While the air remains fixed and still.
The trees and rocks, like your music box,
Are the tiny points jutting above;
And, pricking the tines as time unwinds,
They play out the song that we love.
Look up and see each tip-tilted tree
Whooshing as we fly along!
Press your delicate ear to a pine and hear
Its lilting and lovely song:

“Oh we know the way to the break of day,
Where the songbirds will beckon us bide,
But how can we heed, for we dare not delay
The sonata of eventide.
And oh! What delight—for then plays the night
With its blue tinkling grace notes of stars;
And they all invite the moon to ignite
Risoluto the rest of the bars.
The sunsong is long, but it sweetens the wheat,
Which quivers like golden strings.”

And you too my child, when you walk on your feet,
Make the music play wonderful things.

The Normal Day to Day

In an effort to force myself to write creatively with regularity, I've engaged several friends in a weekly poetry challenge in which we write and share a poem each week. I've found the medium useful in expressing thoughts and images that wouldn't otherwise have an easy outlet.

One of these thoughts hit me the other day. I'm a fairly deep-feeling person, and I enjoy challenge, novelty, passion, and maybe even a kind of melancholy if I can find a positive use for it. But I also occasionally find myself in one of those intense or discouraging moments having had enough, and struggling to find the end of it. To use the metaphor of boats, it's like feeling seasick without a port anywhere nearby. Or, as I've often heard repeated in the flying community, "It's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than in the air wishing you were on the ground." 

The thought that hit me was a thankfulness that the "ground" usually comes to me without my necessarily having worked through or resolved whatever issue was rocking my boat. Sometimes the only difference is a night's sleep, even if the circumstances are exactly the same in the morning. We begin another day brushing teeth, making coffee, scrambling eggs. It's all still there, and the world is somehow bigger and more stable than it felt.

Many times I've bemoaned the negative side of this normalizing tendency, how my human nature gradually (sometimes quickly) normalizes something that amazes me or gives me wonder. As David Wilcox observes in Travelling Companion, "I'm sure if we all could sort of...jump and fly through the air we'd be really happy for about, you know, a week. And then we'd be sitting around saying, 'Well, I don't know, everybody can fly, you know, I'm nothing special...'"

But perhaps the automatic relief normalcy offers outweighs the fact that we must fight as if against gravity to maintain the soaring wonder that makes our lives so exciting. I'd never wish my life to be mundane, but for the first time I've come to consciously appreciate that I don't have to beat every storm with my own resources. Sometimes all I have to do is wait a bit.

This is a poem about that:

The Normal Day to Day

Thank God for the normal day to day,
The firm ground beneath the heights we soar,
The plain daylight above our deepest pits,
The pull of gravity that meets our feet in the morning
And makes every next step sure and familiar. 

Thank God that when tragedy blackens the mind,
And loneliness promises to gnaw us every future hour,
They somehow dissipate on the sandy shore of normalcy,
And we need only wring our socks from the tempest
That tore at our tattered souls the night before.

Thank God the wind abates and between every storm
Miles of mild weather stretch out and seem to say,
“Not yet. No more for a while. Now is rest again.”

And though we will grow restless and hunger for adventure,
We shall surely meet it with bravery and strength drawn
From the normal day to day.

To Have and To Hold

This is a poem for the shopping season. It was inspired by an experience I had once, of throwing away a receipt intentionally.



Behind a veil of pixels lies
A hundred million fancies for my eyes.

A googolplex of shiny things in every shade and shape—
New or used, i will find every option, every possibility
Of satisfaction (guaranteed), and at speed, at no added cost
Or inconvenience. It makes sense for the conscientious consumer
To shop around. Competition and comparison are my companions.
i need walk no aisle to find something special.
Red and green, Black, Brown, and Cyber,
i-deserve the very best. As for the rest—reviews
Reveal how shoppers feel about flukes and false advertising.
These are the days of honesty, and i know where my loyalty lies—
The generous cards and companies; my friends with benefits
Have my back. And should it finally crack or lose its luster,
i’ve one more saving grace to set me free,
The blessed bond of warranty.

I wait in line. It’s time I traded
Something whose excitement finally faded.

Receipt in hand, I turn it over, recalling how enthralling...
How I waited, and after the click, the ticking
Clock counted two days of expedited shipping.
I was a little careful, I confess, to do no damage lest
I void the contract and someday contact the seller in vain
When a better thing surpassed the last.
Holding that receipt in line, I felt and suddenly knew
The thing had never been mine—only loaned, or borrowed,
And for a short time. A little bit of anger warmed within me.
My thrifty cunning kept every option open,
But I owned nothing, not unlimited things, and that sudden knowledge stings.
Is my receipt another’s lasting claim on what I wish to have and hold?
For just one moment, caught between, I remained, and for the first time
Counted cost—all things lost, or one thing gained?

Another choice, another veil,
We make exchange, but on a human scale.

No safety nets or guarantees, I stand to lose more than is mine,
Risking more than I ever will, or ever have before.
In fact, this day, I give it all away. My worldly goods I thee endow.
Take them now.
                            —I take them, but they’re not enough.
Then take not only them, but me, I give without restraint, and free,
To have and hold, for richer or poorer.
                                                              —Give me not only you, and all,
But give me all your options left, and leave yourself devoid, bereft,
Forever without any other, and be set free, to fully have and cherish me;
And count yourself both rich and blessed today, for riches are what you can give away. 
You wish you had more to give away for me, but looking through the veil you finally see—
Every soul retains the world potentially. Now, Love, place my finger in the band,
And don’t forget the feeling of this hand, which years will wear and tarnish until death.
But though my beauty dim and fade away, you’ll know from now until my dying day,
In every second ticking till the end, the joy of what it really means to spend.