not-quite Journaling,
76
The blossoming is done
for you, they told her...
spring is gone;
summer went cold;
autumn will fall
at winter’s feet.
But she ignored them--
wild nature is always
too wild to quit blooming
on anyone’s command.
10/20/2024: I think “a terrible beauty”
should be added to the definition of Climate Change. I can’t believe how many
things are still blooming this late in the season. According to the forecast,
it’s supposed to be 80 °F in New York City on Halloween. Makes me want to cook
my traditional All Hallows’ Eve pumpkin chili outside, on a fire pit… The
thought of a big cauldron bubbling over flames and coals, woodsmoke and spices
and storytelling scenting the air, takes me back to the best years of my
childhood *happy sigh*.
If life skins off de-
light, I shall wear
midnight as a suit.
11/10/2024: This poem bit was my response, when asked to illustrate my feelings on the election results (and what said results might mean for a chronically ill, veteran, immigrant, woman of Afro-Caribbean descent). After reading the poem, someone said they “admired and envied [my] grace and lack of pain”. At first, I thought the person was being sarcastic. When I realized they were serious, my brain and I spent some long seconds stunned by the idea of anyone being so blind… Then, I proceeded to completely lose it—loudly, descriptively, and at length:
I shouted something (probably slightly unintelligible) about metaphors. Then I Magaly-explained that being skinned alive would involve pain, that choosing to stand up when soles and knees and palms are raw from being flayed would be pure agony, that wearing anything on freshly exposed muscles and bones would be torture, that doing any of these things would require taking sadness, rage, disappointment, will, and the almost-corpse of hope… and reshaping all that terrible energy into armor to keep my heart (and other people’s skulls) from being crushed under my pain.
I am angry. I am sad. I am in pain. And I am not feeling particularly graceful at the moment. But “this too shall pass”.
– for
Poets and Storytellers United (Friday Writings #152: Holding Your Breath)
