Something of Myself 403 — an erasure poem by Drew Myron
1.
Make something.
Make up, make do, make coffee, make love, make art, make the bed — make something.
2.
Lonely seeps.
Some days, even the bright ones, the soccer net sags, the sun leans into the grass with a sigh, even the trashcan stands askew.
I am loping along an abandoned track when the cool morning air turns my watering eyes to full sob for a brief moment for no real reason. Isn’t there so much loneliness to these days of getting through?
We’re all doing the best we can. Of course, of course, of course.
Make do, re-do, getting through. We’re all doing doing doing.
It’s the endlessness that wears.
3.
Poetry is medicine.
“I’ve been thinking about how poetry can sustain us,” says doctor-poet Rafael Campo, who treated patients during the height of the AIDS crisis and is now treating Covid-19.
“We need poetry now as we did then to make sense of our experience of suffering.”
4.
Write through.
What to do? Write through.
“It’s like often nothing happens when you stay still. I always feel like I write something out of a transition of some sort,” says writer Eileen Myles.
“You know, like, coming into my apartment thinking: Another day in which I haven’t done any writing. And then that thought fills me with anxiety and I walk in and I write something. . . . I mean, a poem is just a list. It’s a kind of sharing. It’s just an exploration of the filing system of your brain as it moves through space and time.”
5.
From now on . . .
Today is the day, I say.
I often make these sort of statements. I think I’m making conversation but my husband calls them “proclamations,” then asks, “Are you telling me or telling yourself?”
I’m almost always telling myself.
Like this blog, equal parts confession and cheer. So here’s my proclamation to the world (and mostly myself):
Let’s make something!
But let’s not go alone. Please join me. What are you making?
Share your words, art, poems & proclamations with me: dcm@drewmyron.com