Since this picture was taken, my kids have faced some pretty tough things in their personal lives. Now they are also navigating the momentous changes brought about by COVID 19, not to mention the ever-present backdrop of climate and social justice crises that worry them so.
It’s a hard time to be anything right now, but I’d say the thing I’m struggling the most with is being a mom. Assuring kids that there is a bright future waiting for them when they hear so much evidence to the contrary is a tough job. And sometimes I feel like a snake oil salesman when I do.
This poemby Maggie Smith has been such a comfort to me over the last few years, but never more so than it is now.
The title of this blog comes from a favorite poem of mine by the Latin poet and philosopher Lucretius, written sometime in the 1st century BC. It’s incredible to me how relevant it is today.
No single thing abides; but all things flow. Fragment to fragment clings-the things thus grow Until we know and name them. By degrees They melt, and are no more the things we know.
Globed from the atoms falling slow or swift I see the suns, I see the systems lift Their forms; and even the systems and the suns Shall go back slowly to the eternal drift.
You too, oh earth-your empires, lands, and seas – Least with your stars, of all the galaxies, Globed from the drift like these, like these you too Shalt go. You are going, hour by hour, like these.
Nothing abides. The seas in delicate haze Go off; those mooned sands forsake their place; And where they are, shall other seas in turn Mow with their scythes of whiteness other bays.
The seeds that once were we take flight and fly, Winnowed to earth, or whirled along the sky, Not lost but disunited. Life lives on. It is the lives, the lives, the lives, that die.
They go beyond recapture and recall, Lost in the all-indissoluble All:- Gone like the rainbow from the fountain’s foam, Gone like the spindrift shuddering down the squall.
Flakes of the water, on the waters cease! Soul of the body, melt and sleep like these. Atoms to atoms-weariness to rest – Ashes to ashes-hopes and fears to peace!
O Science, lift aloud your voice that stills The pulse of fear, and through the conscience thrills – Thrills through the conscience with the news of peace – How beautiful your feet are on the hills!
My mom is a writer, too. She writes novels. When I was a kid, before computers, she kept her manuscripts in boxes. I knew even then that writers worked day and night, behind closed doors, for months on end to fill their boxes. I thought that novelists were the top of the writer heap. I mean, look at those page counts! Staying up all night to finish a chapter! And then one glorious day, a bound book is born!–a thing they can hold, and know that the heft of words in their hands is entirely the fruit of their labor. That they created a whole world people could slip into. And people would want to stay there for days or weeks–however long it might take to read the thing.
For me, that was the only real writing. That was the pinnacle. But I don’t seem to have the stamina or focus for writing a novel. I get bored of my characters. I tire of my own voice. I sabotage my ideas at some point along the way and decide it’s all stupid–the plot, the twist, all of it. Sometimes I think I decided to write poetry out of laziness. Or impatience.
But maybe not? Maybe I’m not a marathon runner in writing, I’m a sprinter. My ideas leap out of the starting blocks and surge into something in a hurry. Like a tulip, I spring up fast, stick with it out a week or two, then peter out. But tulips are nice, right? I’ve always appreciated a tulip. I’ve always admired the sprinters. They’re not less of a runner than a marathoner, right? Just different types of muscle, something different in our brains.
Well, this was a wonderful surprise. They only publish the first place winner, but this has given me hope that I’m going to get this thing published one of these days!
Well, hello. Welcome to this newest endeavor of mine, a website about poems: the writing of them, the reading of them and the publishing of them. And the loving of them.
Actually, it’s mostly about the loving of them.
This is your invitation to join me on my poetry adventure. I am so glad you’re here.
