Try This: I Remember

Now, our days move with less activity and more reflection. A swarm of memory nags for attention. When the present slows and stills, who can avoid the lingering past?

I advise against it. Nostalgia is overrated. Sentiment is for saps.

And yet, in these heavy days, memories sneak in, sit down and take up space. Sometimes it’s best to give in to our misty water-colored memories, but with limitations. Let’s not drown ourselves in a glowing past, but instead, mine our memories for creative material.

I recently discovered a real gem of a book (50 years after it was first published; I’m always late to the party): I Remember by Joe Brainard.

It’s 167 pages of random recall. Each line starts with the same refrain, I remember, and it’s simple, funny, banal, and brilliant:

“I remember chalk.

I remember how much I tried to like Van Gogh. And how much, finally, I did like him. And how much, now, I can’t stand him.

I remember how sorry I felt for my father’s sister. I thought that she was always on the verge of crying, when actually, she just had hay fever.”

And that’s just page 28.

Memories are so powerful that we cling to them, and then push them away. And years later, when we forget our memories, we curse the loss of mind, our life, our sense of self.

Try This:

1. Start with I remember, and write the first thing that comes to mind. Don’t think, just write. Let your mind flow and your hand move. When that memory dries, make room for the next, and the next. . .

2. Now change perspective. Start with He remembers or You remember or . . . and write your first thought. It doesn’t need to be true or full or kind; this is writing, you get to make it up. Don’t think, just write.

3. When you finish your freewrite, review your work. Is there a good line or a passage with possibility? Start there. Write a story, a drawing, a play. Make a poem or painting. You now have the essential ingredients. Make something!

4. Feeling energized? Share your work with me.

---

Make do, make up, make something

Make up.

Make do.

Makeshift.

Make a cake, a drink, a doozy, a dud.

What I’m saying is, to get in, around and through, you gotta make something. Kick your inner critic. Now is the time to make junk. Get loose, let go.

What are you making?

I’m making lists, letters, meals, memos, poems, pictures, cookies, collage, drawings, darings, delights. I’m playing with words and dreams and fears. I’m staying close, inside, mining the interior of mind and memory. I’m making do with the tools I have: paper, pen, words and glue.

Will you join me? Let’s raise the rate of artful expression. Make something now.

Fissure

You want a show, something worth seeing

but here lights blink, engines stall and 

cheat grass takes hold of every chance.     

Want is a language of rusted grumble.
 

You long for the comfort of a crossing, 

some magical door, an arch, to meadowlark 

and soft rolling slope. But what good is                      

this ache, this pressing want? 

You must find the merits of giving up.

Take a flicker of light, some heat, any

thing to stoke your hope. Let the world 

split open. In everything fissure. 

— Drew Myron

---

Not Rockets

What are you celebrating today?

Not rockets red glare
or bombs bursting in air

Let us celebrate freedom

To make, march, sing & paint. 

To learn, gather, grow.

To read, write, speak. 

To run, return, remove. 

To turn toward and away. 

To love. To cry. To try.

To error and erase.  

To kneel and pray.

To change.

To breathe. 

To breathe. 

To breathe. 

To be.

— Drew Myron

---

A Song, A Movie, A Book

Check your influences. You are what you consume. Books, music, movies — how are you feeding your mind?

Yes, I’m still making a meal of Diet Coke and chips, and overindulging on 1990s television, but I’m trying to balance the junk with the gems. Here are a few of my recent (better) influences:

LISTENING: March March

Just last week The Dixie Chicks renamed their band The Chicks and released this driving song and powerful video. (And catch the protest sign: Ditch Your Racist Boyfriend — that’s excellent copywriting).

See Also: Michael Franti - This World is so F*ucked Up (But I Ain’t Never Giving Up On It)

WATCHING: The End of the Tour

I’m not sure how I missed the early 2000s fanfare for David Foster Wallace and Infinite Jest. But this movie, based on an actual weekend between a Rolling Stone reporter and Wallace, is good stuff. It’s talky and insightful, with great acting and touches of humor.

See Also: This is Water - commencement speeech

READING: Astonishments

This is a quiet book of poems by Polish poet Anna Kamienska. The second half of the collection features extracts from The Notebook, in which she shows a profound and lonely struggle with faith. Line after line pierces and shines:

“In this time of anxiety and searching, one should write something, shape something. Whatever it might be, it could lead to proposing some kind of sense and order. Any situation can become a starting point. Knowledge of life doesn’t have specific beginning and an end. It is like the earth: any point on it can become the beginning or the middle.”

TELL ME:

What’s influencing you — what moves your heart & mind?

And what are you shaping?

---

Try This: Wild Cards

Pick a card, any card.

I had forgotten how much I love Poetry Poker!

The other day while cleaning my office, I found these wild cards and the past rushed back to say hello. I made this deck years ago while leading youngsters to the power and fun of writing — but really, this prompt works for all ages (as is true for nearly every writing exercise).

This game, courtesy of Dr. Alphabet, is a fun way to loosen the mind and play with words. Simply take a deck of cards, add unusual words and phrases, deal a hand, and make a poem, write a song, start a story, or . . . . just have fun with possibilities.

And let’s take a moment to applaud Dr Alphabet, aka Dave Morice. He’s my kind of writer: ireverent, unusual, artful, and a “muse out of the world of Dr. Seuss.” Read all about his inspired, lifelong dedication to word play here.

Your turn: Make a Wild Card piece. Don’t think too much, just let the cards fall and the words flow.

More Writing Prompts:
Try This: Word Catching
Try This: Where I’m From
Try This: Make A Scramble
Try This: You Know the Gnaw

---

Litany

Three months ago I started a file of Pandemic Poems. 

Words rushed in and writing was both compulsion and comfort. I wasn't trying to "say something” but keeping my head above water in the only way I knew, by writing it out. 

But now an entire season has passed. How do we call this a phase? We're not only in a pandemic, but in a seismic shift of actions, attitudes, systems. This is mental, emotional, and cultural change.

Now every poem carries the strain. 

Things are hard, things are easy. I make them so, or, I make the best. Can these statements be both true and false, and at the same time?

I don’t know what to say or share, how to tell this story. Language fails. And still I keep talking. Language is a secret everyone is keeping, writes Rebecca Lindenberg in Catalogue of Ephemera.

My mind is a crowd gathered too close. All day and into night, the sky is the same static gray. Is this winter or summer? Slumber or resignation? I am not sick and not noticeably sad. Maybe this is surrender.

It's not enough to love and wish and poem and pray.

All over this neighborhood now, nothing happens. Stillness. A few walkers, like me, heads down, crossing before approach.

There's little room left for another sorrow.

---

For Hard Times

Riveted

It is possible that things will not get better
than they are now, or have been known to be.
It is possible that we are past the middle now.
It is possible that we have crossed the great water
without knowing it, and stand now on the other side.
Yes: I think that we have crossed it. Now
we are being given tickets, and they are not
tickets to the show we had been thinking of,
but to a different show, clearly inferior.

Check again: it is our own name on the envelope.
The tickets are to that other show.

It is possible that we will walk out of the darkened hall
without waiting for the last act: people do.
Some people do. But it is probable
that we will stay seated in our narrow seats
all through the tedious denouement
to the unsurprising end- riveted, as it were;
spellbound by our own imperfect lives
because they are lives,
and because they are ours.

— Robyn Sarah

This poem was originally published in A Day’s Grace and appeared again in Good Poems for Hard Times.

Friends, we’re in difficult days.

Heads and hearts are heavy as we experience the unraveling of systems, cities, beliefs. All in this together takes on a deeper meaning with each day.

And so, we turn to poems. The world is full of them, thankfully. In a swift stream you’ve got to find your raft and hang on tight.

Have you a poem you’re holding close?

---

On Sunday: Uncertainty

What I’m saying is uncertainty is a way in.

Please pass the humility.

Not knowing, and knowing the more we know we don’t know, is a start.

What I’m saying is uncertainty is the softer strength.

Are you shaken, unsteady, not sure?

Yes, good, let’s start here, rebuilding mind, body, world.

---

What To Do?

This poem, by Langston Hughes, was published in 1931 — nearly 100 years ago — and is still relevant, and still too true.

With a global health crisis, economic upheaval, racial violence and civil unrest, it’s no wonder we’re tired but what’s worse is that this is not new. This is again and again and still.

The world may be on fire, but it’s been burning all along.

With this new urgency, what can we do?

“White people need to do a lot of introspective work to understand the ways in which they personally contribute to, benefit from and tolerate white supremacy,” says Leslie Mac, community organizer.  

While we may never fully understand, we can listen, learn, and work for change. Here’s a start:

Watch: I Am Not Your Negro
A chilling, essential film featuring the powerful writing of James Baldwin, combined with historical context against contemporary events. Free on Amazon Prime. 95 minutes that will expand your mind.

Read: How To Be An Antiracist
At my library, the waiting list for this book runs six months long — which gives me hope that change is possible. Can’t wait? Purchase from your favorite bookstore.

Talk less, listen more:
For white allies, this is not the time to prove your “goodnesss” by sharing how racism makes you feel.

“Any ‘allyship’ rooted in performance is not effective,” notes Mac. “If the action you are taking has any component of making you feel like you did something versus knowing something was done, then you know you aren’t productive.”

---

On Sunday: Holding On

Hey there, 

Are you holding on, and how? 

In these rollercoaster days, I’m gripping tight and letting go, in a rush of fluster and relief. I’m in no immediate danger, and so my discontent is a sort of diffused dread. It seems my mind is casting a net and catching every fear, then retracting to calibrate to some sense of normal (whatever that is now). 

And so, here’s how I’m holding on: 

- Writing through 
A friend leads a writing group that because of my work schedule I’ve never been able to attend. Now the group is meeting by email, and I get to take part. Each week she sends out a prompt and we have several days to think, write, and share. The structure is just what I need to feed my mind and feel accountable, and I’m enjoying new work by people in my community that I’ve never met.

- Weeding my worry 
I loathe yard work and have no love for gardening. Yet, I have recently found unexpected satisfaction in tearing weeds from earth. This is the best therapy I’ve had in years! 

- Hearing from you 
Several readers of this blog have shared with me their writing, from Poem Scrambles to Cut-Ups and more. Others have urged me on with words of encouragement. Thank you! I’m heartened to know you are out there, and hanging around here, in this space for writing and reflection. 

Let’s keep together, apart, pushing through & holding on. 

With appreciation, 
Drew

---

Try This: Make A Scramble

For long stretches, I don’t need tricks. Words arrive, phrases flow, and I am delighted scribe.

And then, the door closes with a thud. Block, stuck, mud, slog, whatever you wanna call it, I’m in it and need relief. When I want less pressure and more play I reach for tricks. This week I made a poem-scramble.

Here’s how: Take a poem, cut it up, rearrange, and make your own new poem.

1.
I started with Shelter in Place by Kim Stafford:

Shelter In Place

March 20, 2020

Long before the pandemic, the trees
knew how to guard one place with
roots and shade. Moss found
how to hug a stone for life.
Every stream works out how
to move in place, staying home
even as it flows generously
outward, sending bounty far.
Now is our time to practice —
singing from balconies, sending
words of comfort by any courier,
kindling our lonesome generosity
to shine in all directions like stars.

~ Kim Stafford

2.
I cut up the words, and assemble new, taking care to not “lift” too much whole cloth. If your first pass sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Check the original to ensure that you haven’t borrowed too exactly.

Here’s mine:

In Place, Shelter 


Any kindling is our courier
sending words of comfort
outward in all directions.

Every generosity
works out how to
shine like stars

even now
as we practice
how to move in place

how to stay in shade
how to love the lonesome
like moss to stone.

~ Drew Myron

Your turn! 
Make your own scramble, (or even scramble my scramble). If you like, share your poem with me at: dcm@drewmyron.com 



Want more tricks?
Wordcatching
Cut Up
Overwrite
Headlines

---

On Sunday: This Fence

1.
We build a fence. Day after day. In rain and heat, in wind and cold, in more rain. Just you, me, and a refrain: hold, measure, cut, level, drill.

Day after relentless day. 

Maybe there was a call and a duty, in the way that you sometimes hear a voice call softly and think how nice, but the next day your head is a throbbing ache of demands and you think kindness is a chore that stings like penance. 

Still, we keep on: build, break away, return.

Coming along we say, nodding, not too much more.

But there is much more, always more. 

2.
This is not metaphor.

This isn’t political commentary, or an afterschool special with a redeeming end. The fence is real.

This fence is our focus and also our division. Because I grumble and you steam. I don't hold the board steady or cut it exact and you hold back because you are too nice to bellow, but the holding in hurts too. This fence is my weakness, your purpose, my dither, all of it swirling so that the boards aren't straight and I'm dizzy with everything we’ll never complete.

3.
It's fine, I say, meaning it is not fine.

I’m too hot, too cold, too tired, and, really, the world wears me down. I shrug and stray, mutter and sulk.

Still, I’m here, again and again. And so are you.

This fence won't end but neither will we. 

---

Under the Influence

Our Ground Time Here Will Be Brief, by Jeanie Tomanek, from
Artists and Poets Respond to the Pandemic, an online exhibition.

In these hazy days, I’m feeling the fatigue of feeling.

Empaths call it absorption, when the mind is a sponge taking in every drop. And it’s mental too, this sifting and sorting of every new thing done, said, reported, refuted. More than ever, we need retreat. The best mental and emotional rest, I’m finding, is reading.

Under the influence of words that feed, fuel and nurture, I feel fine. Feel good doesn’t mean “comfort read” or “easy read” but more of a feed-the-mind read. Here, a few of my latest favorites:

1.
I’ve learned to value failed conversations, missed connections, confusions. What remains is what’s unsaid, what’s underneath. Understanding on another level of being.

 — Anna Kamienska
A Nest of Quet: A Notebook

2.
That such a bright and layered woman had fallen for Emerson — a mediocrity in search of an admiration society — was a cosmic vote for pessimism.

— Tom Rachman
The Rise & Fall of Great Powers: A Novel

3.
Between isolation and harmony, there is not always a vast distance. Sometimes it is a distance that can be traversed in a moment, by choosing to focus on the essence of what is occurring, rather than on its exterior: its difficulty or beauty, its demands or joy, peace or grief, passion or humor. This is not a matter of courage or discipline or will; it is a receptive condition.

— Andre Dubus
Making Sandwiches for My Daughters
God is Love: Essays from Portland Magazine

4.
One-Star Yelp Reviews of Heaven (an excerpt)

Not sure about all the positive reviews on here.
I’ve been here twice now and it was awful both times.
Over-excite, tepidly deliver. The results are un-inspired
because of a fairly bland approach.

— Shawnte Orion
Gravity & Spectacle, a photo-poem collaboration
by Jia Oak Baker and Shawnte Orion

5.
Social Safety Net (an excerpt)

I work in a nursing home
I get gloves, a mask I wear

all day. No gown.

My wife and family . . . We are
scared.

About almost everything.

— Maureen E. Doallas
Artists and Poets Respond to the Pandemic
an online exhibition featuring 22 artists and 18 poets

And you, what’s feeding your mind?

---

You know the gnaw

Are you making — making something, making it through?

I’m still writing through the pandemic, this season of outer quiet and inner scream. Some days the words rush in and I am arms open, catching rain. Other days, words — like me — are sluggish and stumped.

So I hunt through magazines, novels, recipes and mail, finding words that call, then stringing the misfits together to make new sense. This is the cut-up, or collage, poem — one of my favorite ways to plumb the mysteries of meaning. It tenders comfort, discovery, and great relief.

Tell me, what do you do when you can’t find the words? Do you have tricks or prayers or special potions to summon the creative rush?

Threading my arm through yours

I’m trying to stay cracked

open because you can’t

go wrong with tenderness

I’m finding something new to want

because you know meanings

inside of meanings

You are calculating

the weight of plums

the myth of marigolds

the changing weather

You know the gnaw

of things we

can’t understand

What we feel now, is it

a memory of remembering?

— Drew Myron

More Notes (on a pandemic)

1. 
I am angry everywhere. 

A friend snaps at me, I snap at my husband, he snaps back. Mouths shut tight, a thousand bees buzzing in us, together and apart, stung. 

2.
Because frustration is cousin to anger, I take a walk to notice all the red things and suddenly the world is alive: red leaves on a tall tree, red berries on small hedge, red candy wrapper. 

With attention, red turns more alluring than angry. 

3. 
After all these years, I haven't matched the beautiful names — snowberry, blue blossom, fiddle fern, red alder, camelia, hyacinth, goldenfleece — to all the beautiful things, and don't know if I ever will. 

Is it enough to call it beauty and make it real, make it mine? 

4. 
When death is a number, we don't feel the loss. 

One hundred confirmed cases. Three deaths today. 

When it is a name and a life —your mother, neighbor, friend — that's what makes it real. Beauty, life, loss, needs a name. 

5. 
Every choice is fear or love, a friend once told me. 

I took his truth and examined my life: work, love, my sadness, my joy. Love or fear, to every thing a division. But now it seems too easy and too hard. Life isn't this or that. Aren't there more choices? 

Lately, everything I say is a question I don't want to answer. 

6.
I'm trying to be real but it costs too much.

— Ocean Vuong, from Not Even This

7. 
At the nursing home where I work, it's been months since I've held a hand, or talked soft, or laughed close. I wave down a long hall but the gesture is lost in the long space between.  

In the distance today, a thin voice wobbles in song: 

. . . little ones to him belong

they are weak but he is strong . . . 

And I am broke open, again. 

It's not true that our choice is only love or fear, or that sadness is anger turned inward. Or maybe it’s all true — love and sadness, fear and uncertainty, endlessness and urgency — all of it true.

In my anger, sadness makes a nest. In my sadness, anger rises. 

In this, a voice.

---

In Restlessness & Rush

Dear D, 

My mind is skittish, racing from one unfinished idea to the next. Unsettled, flighty, fractured. 

It's not that I don't have Things To Do. Even in this uncertainty, there are things to make, produce, achieve. As always, structure and order get me through, but when endlessness is at the top of every day what does one do? 

I can't stop seeking the last iteration, of every news story, email, and social media post. I am  searching, scrolling, seeking: what happened? what happened?  

I am hungry to know, but dulled with the knowing.  

___

Good grief, why is everyone Zooming? 

For years I've lived away from the people I most know and love, and carried each one in letters and my heart — letters, that beautiful and enigmatic exchange. I don't need to see you, especially in bad lighting and distorted angles. Let’s keep those distortions hidden, private, perfectly intact.  

___

 The other day I laughed, hard and unexpected.  

As good laughs tend to go, this one was brought on by nothing especially funny. One of those throw-away remarks that hit at just the right time and right place so that the laugh travels through the body and fills the room with relief. 

___

I'm writing more than ever. It's a welcome compulsion, this drive to record, though I imagine the poems are mostly process. 

Purists insist poetry is not therapy. They get huffy, as if insulted to both write and feel. Yes, poetry is discipline, study and craft, but it's also therapeutic in the way that a walk restores physical and emotional health.  

Do we have to argue everything? 

Anyway, I'm writing a lot, mostly pandemic poems. They likely won't hold up over time (and that’s okay). In three months, six months, a year . . . when we have put the pandemic on a shelf and looked away (as we tend to do), we'll not want to revisit these difficult days.  

And yet, there is a restlessness and a rush, a desire to notice and note. In all this, writing is lifting me up and carrying me through.

Well, writing, tortilla chips — and you.

With love,
Drew

Postscript:

• An excellent book of letters is Dear Mr. You by Mary-Louise Parker.

• Letters have souls, is not from the Hints from Heloise homemaker but rather the French love-torn nun.

• An anonymous writer keeps a beautiful blog of letters, here.

• Are you writing through this, too? Write to me.

---

Write Through This

Doctors Say, by Drew Myron

Oh, these heavy days.

Daily death counts. Isolation. Vigilance against every cough, sneeze, touch. And today, John Prine died.

The gloom hangs. I don’t need to tell you, of course. We’re all in this. Together, apart, staying home, hanging on.

And yet, I can’t stop telling. It’s both bliss and grief, this rush of words. Balm and barricade. And I’m not alone (well, I am, but y’know, not lonely). Writers are rising up and writing through.

Here a few of my latest favorites:

• Sarah Sloat has built a ship of solitude.

• Instagram, the sorta less evil social media site, offers a trove of pretty pictures and unobtainable aspirations and it’s a great forum for poets.

• Artist Jason Kartez is on Instagram, sharing a compelling account of working at a Los Angeles homeless shelter during the pandemic. The bite-size from-the-field missives are made more powerful with his simple and stark handwritten descriptions.

• Kelli Agodon and Melissa Studdard are collaborating on pandemic poems that you can find on Instagram at #dailywave.

• Rob Walker produces The Art of Noticing, an excellent weekly newsletter — free — packed with suggestions and inspiration “for building your attention muscles.” And, really, isn’t noticing the top requirement for our job as writers? I mean, other than curiosity and coffee? Sign up here.

• And lastly, to celebrate National Poetry Month, I’ll leave you with this gem:

Bliss and Grief

No one

is here

right now.

— Marie Ponsot

---

Thankful Thursday: Because, Despite, Still

Resolutions for the Day, an erasure poem by Drew Myron.

It’s Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things and more. Why give thanks? Because joy contracts and expands in proportion to our gratitude, and these difficult days call for peace and joy.

On this Thankful Thursday, I am grateful for postal workers, books, magazines, movies, scientists, food banks, sunshine, that one magnolia tree in full and glorious bloom, wine, sunshine, strong legs, strong arms, naps, email, bike rides, my husband’s shoulders, empathy, grocery store workers, sleep, tortilla chips, apples, a good cry, gin, sunshine, walking, quiet, my journal, the dog that stopped barking, the neighbor who waves, youtube, text messages from faraway friends, family, volunteers, work, genuine smiles, fried chicken, health insurance, good cheer, poems, poets, social media, journalists, online newspapers that don’t charge, news worth paying for, doctors, nurses, nursing assistants, kitchen crews, people who clean, hairdressers who help you believe you’re a natural blonde, artists, musicians, writers, vision, hope, my lungs, my lungs, my lungs.

What are you thankful for today?

---

Five Good Books + suggestions

Always and again, books come to the rescue and reading is getting me through. In these trying days, reading is comfort and companion.

And because the slog* has lifted, I’m (finally!) enjoying a rush of really good books.

Here are a few of my recent favorites:

Say Say Say
by Lila Savage

A beautiful and evocative novel on the largely unexplored topic of caregivers.

Love this line:

For a moment, she would be fully present in this sadness, porous in her empathy. It was almost unbearable, but at the same time, it seemed like a gift, to feel so much.

Brontosaurus
by Leanne Grabel

Subtitled as a “memoir of a sex life,” this straightforward book takes on rape, telling the story and holding the fallout with clarity, heart, and humor.

If you like this, try:

• Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery by Patricia Weaver Francisco

• Speak, a novel by Laurie Halse Anderson

• Bastard Out of Carolina, a novel by Dorothy Allison

Uncanny Valley
by Anna Wiener

A surprisingly gripping page-turner of a memoir about working in Silicon Valley. With an outsider perspective, Wiener is an excellent writer producing page after page of killer lines, like these:

He wore jeans so tight I felt as if I already knew him.

. . . the patron saint of mislaid sympathies.

He seemed like someone who would have opinions about fonts.

What was it like to be fun, I wondered — what was it like to feel you’d earned this?

If you like this, try:

• Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble by Dan Lyons

Writers & Lovers
by Lily King

A tale of small triumphs for an aspriring writer. This novel will likely appeal to a unique niche of women-writers-who-waitress-while-waiting-for-life-to-make-sense (yes, I saw myself in nearly every page).

Love this line:

I don’t write because I think I have something to say. I write because if I don’t, everything feels even worse.

If you like this, try:

• Father of the Rain, a novel by Lily King

• The Anthologist, a novel by Nicholson Baker

• Bird by Bird, a memoir-guidebook by Anne Lamott

My Dark Vanessa
by Kate Elizabeth Russell

This sometimes claustrophobic novel is dark, disturbing and compelling, and offers a refreshingly nuanced perspective on sexual abuse.

Love this line:

Sometimes I feel like that’s what he’s doing to me —

breaking me apart, putting me back together as someone new.

If you like this, try:

• My Education, a novel by Susan Choi

• Blue Angel, a novel by Francine Prose

• You Deserve Nothing, a novel by Alexander Maksik

* BOOK SLOG is that dreadful trudge through a swamp of so-so books that make you question your self, your choices, your ability to enjoy a rich and full literary life. Thank god, my slog is over!

---

Notes on a pandemic

1. 
How are you doing?

We call from windows and sidewalks, from half-closed doors. From three feet, five feet, six, and more. From phone and email, from laptop and letter. From every distance, we reach out.

How are you is greeting and worry, is wish and prayer. 

2.
Curled in and against, I nearly miss spring, arriving fresh-faced and eager with sunshine, blue sky and sparrow glee. Beyond my inward self, the world breaks open with dogwood, magnolia, and cherries in bloom. 

Dogs are barking, lawn mowers revving, a car rumbles to a start. 

Even in this global crisis, life goes abundantly on and on.  

3.
Remember when people died of natural causes? 

What, really, is natural? 

4. 
Make something, is the inner urge and outer order. And so artists paint, bakers bake, singers sing, and poets write.

Ruth, a respected teacher and poet, lives in a care facility in Oregon, where visitors have been banned to ensure the protection of the vulnerable residents. She keeps writing on, writing through:

Twenty-twenty Vision

These days, weeks, months curl in parentheses

closed off from the whitewater current

even from the peaceful stream. No dailyness

to rely on, no boulders to hop from this to the next—

No next.

And not much then.  Past seems irrelevant,

shifting, unstable . . .

Take my hand.

Today rely on this grip.

We have our now.

Breathe.

— Ruth Harrison 

5. 
Is this the reset? 

Months from now, will we savor a meal at our favorite place, our faces close, hands clasped tight? Will we share dessert, our forks next-to-next, and not think twice about what has touched, with who, and how? 

And at the house, will our friends gather? Will we shake hands, pat backs, and hug hello? Will I embrace my father without fear, and offer more than a distant wave to the kind neighbor passing?

Tell me, will we kiss again, reckless and sure?  

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