FOLLY ENOUGH

Copyright Barry Blitt, used without his permission.

I hesitate to start writing this morning as it has been so arduous these past couple of days. However, I can see some progress in my writing and thinking, so just like my continued effort to regain my headstand, I will press on for a bit. 

My friend SC, in quarantine in upstate NY, sent me this poem this morning.

THE AMBITION BIRD

So it has come to this –

insomnia at 3:15 A.M.,

the clock tolling its engine

like a frog following

a sundial yet having an electric

seizure at the quarter hour.

The business of words keeps me awake.

I am drinking cocoa,

the warm brown mama.

I would like a simple life

yet all night I am laying

poems away in a long box.

It is my immortality box,

my lay-away plan,

my coffin.

All night dark wings

flopping in my heart.

Each an ambition bird.

The bird wants to be dropped

from a high place like Tallahatchie Bridge.

He wants to light a kitchen match

and immolate himself.

He wants to fly into the hand of Michelangelo

and come out painted on a ceiling.

He wants to pierce the hornet’s nest

and come out with a long godhead.

He wants to take bread and wine

and bring forth a man happily floating in the Caribbean.

He wants to be pressed out like a key

so he can unlock the Magi.

He wants to take leave among strangers

passing out bits of his heart like hors d’oeuvres.

He wants to die changing his clothes

and bolt for the sun like a diamond.

He wants, I want.

Dear God, wouldn’t it be

good enough just to drink cocoa?

I must get a new bird

and a new immortality box.

There is folly enough inside this one.

— Anne Sexton, The Complete Poems

In lock-down and quarantine, ambition seems so quaint, at least any professional ambition. Mostly we aim for health and shelter for all.

Maybe this is enough for this morning and my ambition bird can be cleaning the kitchen all the way to the floor.