*Shifted, an erasure poem by Drew Myron*

Dear Reader,
Not a letter, or poem, not even email. I have not written.

Not because there is nothing to say but because there is too much.

I’m still here. And you?

1.
Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything, says Gordon Hempton.

2.
I'm trying to pay attention. But the world is too much and my mind too heavy. This constant darting, this fatigue. You feel it too?

I want to know know know but when I know it's not enough. I crave more details, more nuance, more information. Feed me, more more more. It's addictive, corrosive, wearing.

3.
Full sentences are too much. The mind files only nuggets, lines, bits. I sift for words and meaning, for sense. I stand at watch, seeing chaos and rubble, seeing nothing, nothing, everything.

4.
Teach us to care and not to care.
Teach us to sit still.

— Ash Wednesday by T.S. Eliot

5.
Phrases we never want to hear again:

Now, more than ever. . .

In this challenging time . . .

Unprecedented.

6.
This is not sadness. Not depression. Aren’t we all just so full?

Not sated. Not glowing with plentitude. The other full: flooded.

7.
The moment of change is the only poem, wrote Adrienne Rich.

The poem is in us, in action and rest, rising, forming, in this very moment, in our every now. What is your poem?

8.
How to get through?

Keep reading, writing, walking, thinking, reaching.

Keep awake.

Keep trying.

Keep going.

You, yes you, keep on.