End of April 2024: Poem for You

Ars Poetica

I'm going on Survivor
to write about nature.
It will be brutal,
but the wilderness calls. As Whitman says
in "Song of Myself,"
these are the days that must happen to you.
Out here I am born, winds
slice like machetes
and the sun is my flint,
but my team is so sick of me
I hear them plotting all day:
Why do we keep the poet around?
She works so hard,
but she is not strong.
I say, Do you see the blue hermit crab
inhabit a room
to inhabit itself?

Don’t you know "stanza" means "room"
and the sky is a house?

So they vote me off
and I leave on a boat, now
I write this to prove
I am still from the world,
my poems and the waves
both taking me back.

End of May 2021: Waiting

This month has been a long wait. Do you feel the same way? It’s been hard to exist between these oscillations of lethargy, excitement, longing. Sometimes it is easier to focus on small things. Here is a checklist for this month:

  • Play music out loud, loudly, to the disappointment of your roommates
  • Drink cold tea
  • Write something that is only meant for you
  • Sit outside and watch the transition from sunset to sun-having-set
  • Wear an outfit you have never worn before
  • Indulge in candy
  • Just don’t do it… put it off… sit and do nothing
  • Wear sunscreen
  • Take pointless pictures
  • Call someone instead of texting

I hope this list inspires something. It doesn’t have to be productive, which is something that I’m reminding myself of lately. A month can just be a month and nothing else.