Monday Whatevers

April 4, 2022

Hello, Friend! 

It’s Monday, so… inspired by on one of my favorite bits of the Bible, let’s start every week off with a little bit of whatever’s good and noble in the world. Here are a few excellent and noteworthy things I’m seeing in the world right now.

Please feel free to share in the comments whatever is good that you’re seeing in the world as well.  

Blessings,
Marcie 

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April is National Poetry Month—and I so dearly love poetry and would like to celebrate it in this week’s Monday Whatever list. 

This week I want to share some short brilliant poems by lively and wild women who have penned in a few short verses things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellent, and worthy of praise.

Peace. 

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Lucille Clifton: it was a dream 

in which my greater self
rose up before me
accusing me of my life
with her extra finger
whirling in a gyre of rage
at what my days had come to.
what,
i pleaded with her, could i do,
oh what could i have done?
and she twisted her wild hair
and sparked her wild eyes
and screamed as long as
i could hear her
This.  This.  This.

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Tsering Wangmo Dhompha: From “Substitute Heart”

A single human life migrates through many lifetimes,
according to the books she read to me.

The word migrant is cousin to nomad which is what her ancestors were.

When she turned refugee, she was told not to confuse herself with migrant.

There is no uniform legal definition of migrant. Blurring the terms generates confusion, aid workers explained.

We are often asked who we are and where we come from. We tell the story we’ve memorized by heart, we know when to insert facts and what emotions are better left in our bodies.

Practice compassion, the teacher says when we ask him to make decisions for us.

Good thoughts generate good thoughts without asking for an exchange.

Just the thought of wanting to help others is worth thinking on, he says.

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Margaret Atwood: [you fit into me]

you fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye

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Sylvia Plath: Metaphors

I’m a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising.
Money’s new-minted in this fat purse.
I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there’s no getting off.

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Natasha Trethewey: Housekeeping

We mourn the broken things, chair legs
wrenched from their seats, chipped plates,
the threadbare clothes. We work the magic
of glue, drive the nails, mend the holes.
We save what we can, melt small pieces
of soap, gather fallen pecans, keep neck bones
for soup. Beating rugs against the house,
we watch dust, lit like stars, spreading
across the yard. Late afternoon, we draw
the blinds to cool the rooms, drive the bugs
out. My mother irons, singing, lost in reverie.
I mark the pages of a mail-order catalog,
listen for passing cars. All day we watch
for the mail, some news from a distant place.

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Maya Angelou: Awaking in New York

Curtains forcing their will
against the wind,
children sleep,
exchanging dreams with
seraphim. The city
drags itself awake on
subway straps; and
I, an alarm, awake as a
rumor of war
lie stretching into dawn
unasked and unheeded.

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Ursula K. Le Guin: Come to Dust 

Spirit, rehearse the journeys of the body
that are to come, the motions
of the matter that held you.
Rise up in the smoke of palo santo.
Fall to the earth in the falling rain.
Sink in, sink down to the farthest roots.
Mount slowly in the rising sap
to the branches, the crown, the leaf-tips.
Come down to earth as leaves in autumn
to lie in the patient rot of winter.
Rise again in spring’s green fountains.
Drift in sunlight with the sacred pollen
to fall in blessing.
                                   All earth’s dust
has been life, held soul, is holy.

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Dorothy Parker: Resumé

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

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Linda Hogan: The Way In

Sometimes the way to milk and honey is through the body.
Sometimes the way in is a song.
But there are three ways in the world: dangerous, wounding,
and beauty.
To enter stone, be water.
To rise through hard earth, be plant
desiring sunlight, believing in water.
To enter fire, be dry.
To enter life, be food.

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Ho Xuan Huong: Floating Sweet Dumpling

My body is powdery white and round
I sink and bob like a mountain in a pond
The hand that kneads me is hard and rough
You can't destroy my true red heart