I have continued to meander through Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing. A couple of days ago, as hew was talking about taking in the soundscapes around us, he quoted artist Marc Weidenbaum:
“The world is a museum. You are the docent.”
I decided to let those words guide my writing tonight, after a loving nudge from Ginger to re-engage the practice of my Lenten journal.
a short un-guided tour
first, let me say
the exhibit holds more
than you can possibly
take in on one visit
those who know it best
come back daily
to look at the same things
that are never the same things
and to notice what
is missing and what has
been added or found
stop look and listen feel
free to touch most anything
it is all breakable, irreplaceable
we have no permanent exhibits
things to notice today:
the screaming baby just hit
the same pitch as Paul in the
middle of the na na na nanana nas when
he screams, “Judy, Judy, Judy . . .”
the beam of light across the
steeple is the shade of orange
Van Gogh was looking for
and never could find
not really . . .
but that would be pretty cool
I will leave you to your senses
and let you find what you find
while I notice that today
two people asked me
how long it had been
since I talked to my brother
and then late this afternoon
I called him by mistake
and we both laughed
at the same time
I need to sit with that memory
before it fades away
you can show yourself out
One meme I read this week said, “I am hopeful that the pandemic will bring about necessary changes in healthcare the same way Sandy Hook and Parkland brought about necessary changes in gun laws. And now we can add Atlanta. The most recent expression of white terrorism sent me looking, first, for words and when I couldn’t find them I went looking for songs. Protest songs. Songs of lament. That’s what I offer here.
Just last week I learned of Chris Pierce for the first time. His songs are going to open and close our set. He has a new album called “American Silence” and the title track says,
we see the music move you as you lay your burden down we feel the music grip you as your heart is soaked in sound and when the song is over, if you decide to clap aloud will your applause mean anything with stitches on your mouth
can we sing a song for you will music move your heart and mind will our song arrest you american silence is a crime
Raye Zaragoza is described in her bio as a “Japanese-American, Mexican, and Indigenous woman” and she is a wonderful songwriter. “In the River” was written about Standing Rock, and she sings,
there’s got to be some hope there’s got to be some hope there’s got to be some way for you to send your dogs away and to leave the land alone it’s got to be a crime somewhere in your heart you’ll find we’re fighting for our right to keep our future bright and protect the ones we love
in the river is our sisters and our brothers we are camping out for each other we are stronger when we band together and we’re standing up for the water don’t poison the future away
J. S. Ondara is a Kenyan immigrant who learned how to play Bob Dylan songs in the slums of Nairobi and then set out for Minneapolis to find him. His songs are achingly beautiful.
will you let me in, or are you at capacity will you set me free, are you holding onto history will you be sincere, are you averse to honesty will you dare to hear those children matching on the street
oh God bless America, the heartache of mine oh God bless America, the heartache of mine
In “Preach” John Legend speaks to the contagious sense of helplessness we have to consciously engage.
I can’t sit and hope, I can’t just sit and pray, that I can find a love, when all I see is pain falling to my knees and though I do believe I can’t just preach, baby, preach whoa, oh I can’t just preach, baby, preach
all I hear is voices everybody’s talking nothing real is happening, ’cause nothing is new now when all is tragic and I just feel sedated why do I feel numb? Is that all I can do? Yeah
Jason Isbell is the one person on this playlist that I’ve listened to for a long time. He makes the list tonight because of one of his most haunting songs, “White Man’s World.”
I’m a white man living on a white man’s street I’ve got the bones of the red man under my feet the highway runs through their burial grounds past the oceans of cotton
I’m a white man looking in a black man’s eyes wishing I’d never been one of the guys who pretended not to hear another white man’s joke oh, the times ain’t forgotten
there’s no such thing as someone else’s war your creature comforts aren’t the only things worth fighting for you’re still breathing, it’s not too late we’re all carrying one big burden, sharing one fate
Kae Tempest is a poet and a rapper and a playwright and, well, the list goes on. And it’s not just their words but the way they deliver them. “People’s Faces” is a prime example.
we’re working every dread day that is given us feeling like the person people meet really isn’t us like we’re going to buckle underneath the trouble like any minute now the struggle’s going to finish us
and then we smile at all our friends
it’s hard
we got our heads down and our hackles up our back’s against the wall I can feel you aching
none of this was written in stone there is nothing we’re forbidden to know and I can feel things changing
even when I’m weak and I’m breaking I’ll stand weeping at the train station ‘cause I can see your faces
there is so much peace to be found in people’s faces
As I said, Chris Pierce started us off and he is going to take us out asking the question for the day: how can anybody be okay with this?
I’m sick and tired of this song we’ve been singing it too long singing we shall overcome someday it’s been four hundred years it sustains loud and clear it’s so hard to believe, the outcry and the tears
why is it taking so long? why should I have to write this song?
tell me, how can anybody be okay with this? how can anybody be okay with this? how is this land for you and me when we can’t run in our own streets tell me, how can anybody be okay with this?
Hope is not guaranteed. Let me say it another way. Hope is not obvious. To find it, we have to pay attention–mostly to one another. Hope grows out of solidarity and compassion. We cannot be okay with this because it’s not okay.
And Kae is right: there is so much peace to find in people’s faces.
“Every household has a first language, a kind of language of the house.”–Alex Kalman
first language
I was almost twelve years old
before I met someone who had
lived in the same house his whole life
my family spoke the language
of motion, of doing, of next things
and though I have picked up
a few phrases of how to stay
unsettled is my vernacular
forty-five houses in sixty-four years
what I learned of home happened
around the dinner table
I was almost twelve years old
when I realized not everyone
ate breakfast and dinner together
the addresses changed but not
our daily breaking of bread
no matter where we lived
I felt at home at the table
to be human is to be a polyglot
life demands multilinguality
(we even make up words)
we stumble through sentences
whole paragraphs of existence
to do what we have to do
love is learning new languages
and saying what we know best
in ways others can hear
I started last night by saying I had seen an article in The Atlantic titled “We Have To Grieve Our Lost Good Days” and the title sent me into poetry writing mode before I even read the article. I also said I was going to read the article when I finished, and I did. Twice. But it was not until someone made a comment on my blog that I saw what I had not seen” the title of the article was “We Have to Grieve Our Last Good Days,” not Lost Days.
search image
things hide in plain sight
or maybe they’re not hiding
we just don’t see them
because our mind has
a mental search image
that lets us see what we
were looking for rather
than what is there
she wrote the word last
it was all over the page
and all I saw was lost
she was pointed to
memories of last times
and I saw the days that
never got to happen
that can’t be remembered
mental search image
is a term I learned from
something else I read
it describes how we find
our car keys or spot
our friends in a crowd
we have an image of
what we are looking for
what are you looking for
beyond these days of
depression and distance
so much that your mind
switches letters to
let you see it
I’m just wondering
you don’t have to answer
I opened The Atlantic to see what was new and saw this title “We Have To Grieve Our Lost Good Days.” Before I could click the link I was writing a poem in my head, so I quit clicking and went to writing. Now I will go back and read the article.
we have to grieve our lost good days
was the headline of the article
by julie beck in the atlantic magazine
I want to make sure to give her credit
and I will go back and read it
but her first eight words
made me to write before I read
to think of what I have to grieve
before I read her list of losses
I lost seeing jason isbell live
lyle lovett and roseanne cash too
and john prine all together
I lost the chance to travel and talk
about the color of together
and a whole year of barn dinners
and trips back to durham
we lost our trip to ireland
some of that stuff will happen
but we have to grieve because
a lot of life has been lost
and will stay lost
I just read back through my losses
and was struck by the predominance of I
when julie beck said we
and all of a sudden all I can see
is over a half a million people
who have lost their lives
all their good days
for no good reason
we have to grieve our lost good days
alongside of grieving everything else
and what should we do
with the fear that we could forget
what this pain has taught us
and just be glad it’s over
our heartbreak makes us
capable of so much more
good grief has a long memory
we have to grieve
Ginger and I were vaccinated last Saturday. The site was the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut, about forty-five minutes from Guilford. Which vaccine you get is quite random around here. Turns out we got the Johnson and Johnson one, which is a single dose. Along with feeling safer, I feel deeply grateful, and also profoundly aware of how my privilege plays into this process.
a shot in the arm
after playing online
reservation roulette
for several days
we won a slot for
a shot at mohegan sun
the luck of the draw
gave us the one-shot
version of the vaccine
we picked up a bag
of fun size candy
to give to those who
save lives for a living
(snickers should come
in thank you size)
this morning the cdc
said in a couple of weeks
gathering with others who
have rolled up their sleeves
is a gamble worth taking
which means the odds
of a barn dinner are
looking pretty good
I read the story twice
and then pictured
myself at the table
some time this summer
its a safe bet to say
every dish I serve
will come with a hug
Between a recuperating pup who has left us a bit sleep deprived, a work load that has been unrelenting, and the ongoing wear and tear of the pandemic, I found myself looking for words to say tired.
word search
I’ve been told the Inuit
have fifty-something
words for snow
its actually more like ten
the words help mark the
difference between
snow falling snow on the ground crystalline snow on the ground snow used to make water ice in general freshwater ice, for drinking slushy ice by the sea
this season of unending
isolation and frustration
has me looking for ways
to say how tired we are
turns out we have our own
blizzard of vocabulary
exhausted fatigued
spent drained beat
distressed worn out
pooped enervated
done in dog tired
run down wrung out
drained done for
I heard a woman say
“I’m so tired that I feel
like I’ve been hit in the
back with a dead cat”
none of the sentence
made sense except
I know how she feels
Spring training games started this week. I turned on the Red Sox and saw a whole roster full of names I didn’t know. Most of my favorite players over the past few years are gone for one reason or another. Thank goodness baseball and poetry (and spring) all go well together.
spring training
the ground is still
frozen at Fenway
but they’re swinging
for the fences in Florida
I recognize the front
of the jerseys but
their shoulders carry
strange surnames
asking me to believe
once again that
anything is possible
chances are that
my heart will break
like a curveball
come autumn
but this is not then
it is hope season
uncertainty is in the air
anything can happen
nothing stays the same
the crack of the bat
creates possibilities
no matter who swings
it’s too much to say
they’re practicing
resurrection but
it is about new life
for as long as it lasts
about making errors
and going home
making room for
new names to love
My days have been full and my words have been hard to find, so tonight I’m borrowing from others. As I began looking for songs, I had in mind to play Bruce Cockburn’s “Pacing the Cage” and then remembered Jimmy Buffett’s amazing cover of the song, which seemed to be the one to share tonight. And that got me searching for covers of songs I love.
I’ll let Jimmy start us off.
sunset is an angel weeping
holding out a bloody sword
no matter how I squint I cannot
make out what it’s pointing toward
sometimes you feel like you live too long
days drip slowly on the page
you catch yourself
pacing the cage
I didn’t know who Kyle and Danielle were until YouTube showed me this version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Atlantic City,” one of my favorite songs of redemption.
everything dies, baby, that’s a fact
but maybe everything that dies some day comes back
put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty
and meet me tonight in Atlantic City
Grace Potter sang “I Shall Be Released” at a concert to honor Levon Helm, even though Bob Dylan wrote the song. And she sings it like she owns it.
they say everything can be replaced
they say every distance is not near
so I remember every face
of every one who put me here
I see my light come shining
from the west down to the east
any day now, any day now
I shall be released
Skinny Living is another band that is new to me, but their cover of Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” made me wish I was sitting in the pub with them.
and I wanna rock your gypsy soul
just like way back in the days of old
then magnificently we will float
into the mystic
Justin Townes Earle died this past year. He wrote a lot of great songs himself, but knowing how he struggled with addictions and finding some sense of his own peace, his cover of Paul Simon’s “Graceland” makes the song reach even deeper inside me.
and I may be obliged to defend
every love, every ending
or maybe there’s no obligations now
maybe I’ve a reason to believe
we all will be received in Graceland
I had never heard Andrew Bird sing with Tift Merritt until I heard their cover of Townes Van Zandt’s “If I Needed You” from an old Letterman show.
if I needed you would you come to me?
would you come to me for to ease my pain?
if you needed me I would come to you
I would swim the sea for to ease your pain
I can remember buying my first Crosby, Stills, & Nash in ninth grade. I learned a lot about singing harmonies listening to them. I found this concert footage where they pay tribute to their favorite band–and they will close us out with “Blackbird.”
blackbird singing in the dead of night
take these broken wings and learn to fly
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to arise
Pull up the covers and enjoy the songs as we wait for spring.
We’ve got tickets for an online concert and conversation between Lyle Lovett and Vince Gill tonight. We had seen him at least once every year of our marriage until the pandemic killed live music.
to be in the room
it was early February long ago
a first date in an ice storm
my Tercel rose to the occasion
and we made our way to
Good Eats for dinner and then
to downtown Fort Worth
and the Caravan of Dreams to
see Lyle Lovett for the first time
February is fading into March
as we settle into a room of our own
to listen to Lyle and Vince Gill
play and sing from their rooms
a long day meant I didn’t make
much of dinner but here we are
remembering all the rooms
Lyle filled to sing to us
I miss being in the room
to hear how the food sounds
and the songs taste
to look around at the tables
filled with stories being told
the host of humanity that has
showed up to help us tell ours
in quite a variety of venues
Good Eats burned down
the Caravan of Dreams gave
way to Sundance Square
and it’s not the same on screen
but when did we ever want
things to be the same
to be in the room with you
is what makes the memory
