Friday, November 4, 2011

you were there, and you, and you




CODA

And now I know what most deeply connects us

after that summer so many years ago,
and it isn’t poetry, although it is poetry,

and it isn’t illness, although we have that in common,

and it isn’t gratitude for every moment,
even the terrifying ones, even the physical pain,

though we are grateful, and it isn’t even death,

though we are halfway through
it, or even the way you describe the magnificence

of being alive, catching a glimpse,

in the store window, of your blowing hair and chapped lips,
though it is beautiful, it is; but it is

that you’re my friend out here on the far reaches

of what humans can find out about each other.

—Jason Shinder




go home go home go on get gone

thanksgiving's coming soon, thank god

next semester, if everything works out, I get to take a class with edward albee and go to the ocean as much as i want.

a friend sent me his new manuscript. it reminded me to pay attention; he'd somewhat fallen into victimhood. being a victim is easy. owning your stuff, your garbage, baggage, baloney - that's hard. owning the places you've really fucked up. cleaning up. packing up, unpacking. i understand that you can write a book about a garden without writing about the sweat it took to plant it, without the times you cursed the ground, but why would you? why write the real dark as something imagined? maybe it means you could write your way out of there, temporarily, while the lights flash and you sign your book, do interviews talking about your book; i understood that the phrase to re-write history, implied avoidance, choices. I think it means something much darker now.

i should be fair. be fare, be fine, be-yond. last month, in the back of my notebook, he wrote a note that made me cry, that i needed to press to my chest for awhile, to soothe what felt torn there. and then one day, i didn't need to. i walked into the present tense. the air was just cold enough, and the sun was out -- it is fall in texas and the monarchs are coming through on slow loping wings on their way to the gulf. today i'm writing a paper, going to workshop, tomorrow waking up at 3 a.m. to go to the ocean with zach and eric.

good morning, chickadees, get up. let's go.

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