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| 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.
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