recovery is in the details

RIP Dame Anita Roddick, pioneer, revolutionary, beautiful soul.
RIP, all that were lost in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. You are not forgotten.

Little by little, I am emerging from my dizzy hell. I have a long way to go, but I actually have moments wherein I feel like myself again. When I could stand to write, when writing didn't make me want to puke, I tried to capture what I was feeling in poetry. It is my way, my language--I would try to journal, write complete sentences, but my attempts were futile--full, "complete" thoughts were not the way my brain was apprehending the world. Bits and pieces, snapshots, glimpses. Concentration was at a premium. I did a lot of staring straight ahead, sometimes in the garden, sometimes while laying in bed, finding patterns in the ceiling. Somewhere beneath many, many layers of paint on our bedroom ceiling, box-pattern wallpaper reminds us of how more than a century ago, such things (like wallpapering a ceiling) were in vogue. Details. It's all in the details.

God (When I’m Sick)


Can we write about cigarettes any more?
Is the hurry truly propelled?
Can we sit for days on end watching
wires touch tree limbs and not
move to cut? To stand?

What is this garden but lucky chaos
happened upon the right colors
selective thinning and a slim
chance of hail big as quail eggs?
Maybe this is the hand
we’re dealt, and maybe those

worn out words are tired but still
breathing. Can we write about what
gets us up in the morning?
What desire has to do with dizziness?
Why can’t I stop smoking?
Can we write about that?

6.20.07


Letter


Because we are not plumb
you and I
because we are not tarred
because we wake with idle thumb and risky face
because we will succumb
to every cancer’s bleating,

be still, be unmoved, unclimbable, mountainous –

because recluse is by far
the worst excuse for silence
because we cannot prove or disprove
congenial offerings in suits

be wise, counterbalanced, be true
to the shadow’s fleeting,
battles receding in sleep

be still, be unmoved, mountainous, diffuse.

Because we are not plumb
you and I

because we are unmoored
because we capture paltry sums
then put them to misuse

be filled, be distilled
reduced, traversable.

7.14.07