Speaking of Poetry

Here is another poem that spoke to me

Pandemic

“What if you thought of it

as the Jews consider the Sabbath—

the most sacred of times?

Cease from travel.

Cease from buying and selling.

Give up, just for now,

on trying to make the world

different than it is.

Sing. Pray. Touch only those

to whom you commit your life.

Center down.

And when your body has become still,

reach out with your heart.

Know that we are connected

in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.

(You could hardly deny it now.)

Know that our lives

are in one another’s hands.

(Surely, that has come clear.)

Do not reach out your hands.

Reach out your heart.

Reach out your words.

Reach out all the tendrils

of compassion that move, invisibly,

where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love–

for better or for worse,

in sickness and in health,

so long as we all shall live.”

– Lynn Ungar 3/11/20

Finding moments of Grace

It's been a difficult few days and they are only going to get harder.  April will be a tough month.  May,  I hope,  will be the epoch,  and after that,  things will get a little easier.  In the meantime, I'm hunkering down.  

I'm also counting my blessings.  That I live in such a physically beautiful place - Little Bay - near the sea,  near the city,  near national park.  That I enjoy spending time with my husband.  We share this new isolation quietly,  contentedly.  I'm cooking all sorts of new recipes,  baking,  using that weird collection of bananas I had in my freezer.



And tonight we watched JoJo Rabbit,  which moved me far more than I thought I would.  It's funny and whimsical and then suddenly,  terrible and real. It ended with some lines from a poem which really spoke to me,  so I'll reprint them here for you (poetry is like wine to me,  I can get drunk on it,  it punches though my intellect and puts me in a world of feeling)

Go to the Limits of Your Longing,  
by Rainer Maria Rilke

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Book of Hours, I 59

Wishing you well in these difficult times.