A RUBY FIELD OF FEELING

Yes, many many days since I have written. Yeah, I more than survived Thanksgiving. Actually, I had a very nice dinner with Mel, John, his niece, Elena, her boyfriend, Peter, Mel's workmate and soul-sister/mentee Marlowe, and a special guest appearance from the "Loki" of 12th Street Bar and Grill, JH.

Department of Good-to-Know.

Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
 -Flannery O'Connor

The hard part about truth is not the "stomaching" but the understanding, the realization of what is. Better to swallow once you have been able to chew through some of it, get a taste of what needs to be digested.

I subscribe to this nice daily poem from the American Academy of Poets. I must admit I do not always take the few minutes to read and savor these because, you know, gotta keep movin' on more important things ("Now, WHO is Tom Cruise dating?") … but this one this morning stuck with me. And besides, I am getting a head start on my next year's mantra of "slow down, move forward."

My Teacup

by Alli Warren

trees are steaming 

ever more vital pliant DINK 

I can't see a thing in the sky 

I choose George 

Stanley over Fear 

and Trembling 

Tell why you chose 

to do this or that 

on each occasion 

Nothing with hooves 

or heels was it? 

Excuse me for not thumbing 

the abyss, "the goading urgency 

of contingent happenings" 

how stretchy the membrane 

how drunk the ship 

breaching the freight 

we port with 

however it is 

I am and come to know 

the ruby field of feeling 

and isn't a life suddenly 

laid in all its excess 

of doubt & dualism 

gag in the mouth I forget 

to give sense to 

relations that animate 

to be carried among them 

you are not an engineer 

yet forms persist 

so topple the column 

any place there's a rope there's 

the earth is not enough 

I stick my head in it 

I lose my coat 

There are so many great phrases here, and a multiplicity of ways to read the cadence. Here's what the poet says about this poem: 

This poem struggles with decision making and its aftermath, at the level of the individual, the nation-state, and the species, if it may be so bold. It sits on a loveseat, a barstool, a concrete slab, and an office chair. It wants to live, love and learn but can't see the field for the steaming trees."

--Alli Warren

Yeah, can't see the field.