Tag Archives: hungry

End of February 2021: Holding

In me the caresser of life wherever moving....
     backward as well as forward slueing,
To niches aside and junior bending.

Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

This month was challenging for many reasons, but first…

Do you feel different now? Or maybe you just feel more tuned into yourself? Perhaps it’s not about the months, but the days, hours, minutes. Each building on the last. Last night was the full moon.

…I think this month was about the small things. I have been reminding myself to pay attention to the small things when I feel like I have no big things to show for my efforts. Sometimes the small things will add up over time. But even if they don’t, you can still hold them in your hands. They are small.

Some small things: A walk, a meal, a wave at someone, a comment heard while eavesdropping, a letter written, an email sent, a photo taken, an instance of pen to paper, a call from someone, a call to someone, a scent, a color, the sun’s rays, a piece of candy, a bird outside.

I resist anything better than my own diversity,
And breathe the air and leave plenty after me,
And am not stuck up, and am in my place.

Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

New Year

 I am seeing you in the broth again: 
 the best days are rising to the top 
 like good fats and clear onions.
 I almost bring down my tongue
  
 to taste, but I know it will only burn
 and take a week to heal, feeling numb 
 like static when I count the backs of my teeth 
 walking outside, brisk and alone
  
 this month, staying present but losing
 myself to sleep at night listing 
 those things you might have
 given me— red stones, the number three,
  
 steering— and I feel like a tourist 
 in my own strange city, leaning over
 a handrail and falling into the tigers
 to take a photo. I'll risk it to feel
  
 a rush of something, but I am not waiting for fruition
 unless it proves that time is a chord across
 a circle, or that the half-life of missing you
 is tonight's long dinner, where I lift the bowl
  
 again to my mouth and drink half, then half,
 then half, so as not to run it dry but instead
 to forget hunger. I don't always remember. 
 Your house was full of those summer drafts.