Monday Morning Sign & Poetry

     

As I was walking to my morning appointment today I stepped over this word "trust" written into the sidewalk, then stepped back to take the picture just at exactly the moment my Ipod shuffled to Thich Nhat Hanh saying, (I'm paraphrasing, hardcore) Don't worry about the future. Don't get attached to what you do being successful. Have confidence in your work. Do the best you can and let your work contain understanding and compassion. Be attendant to each moment. Do your best.

Mmmmm, I say. 

Can't quite get into the writing groove (but full of energy now that my acupuncture herbs have been adjusted!) so I'm going to share a poem I wrote while I still lived in D.C., maybe ten years ago. It originally appeared in the 48th issue of Gargoyle as "Seven Stages of Seasonal Affective Disorder." Also a good time to mention that on my Lisa Chun Website, if you go to the "Word" section on the main menu  I've split the poems into two portions - past & present and added more poems to both. I know there are some of you who have spent quite a bit of time there over the years and I'm happy to say that after five or maybe eight years - yippee - some new stuff! How's that for not fast but eventual progress? Onto the poem.

these things in winter


1. nights. even the light from the moon is cold. i lie awake. the phone
doesn't ring for ten days.

2. food and drink. obsessive thoughts about food and drink      as a way
of removing myself from the weather, from the absence of a warm body
next to mine in my white     bed while the white of the snow outside
threatens to press in. i drink martinis. more for the shape of the glass,
it's cool elegance, than for the drink itself. vodka so smooth it's like
water. cigarettes to chase away the smoothness. blueberries as
stolen treasures in winter. strawberries coated with white chocolate
from france.

3. the writing assignment given to our group during the whitest of the
winter months: write for 90 minutes write without censoring yourself
the history of lovers'/childrens'/strangers' skin.

4. this image/a postcard i sent to myself while in portland: a french man
waiting in the airport. dark. dark liquid for eyes hair even his jacket
made of dark leather. his palm pressed into mine briefly. quick talk about
films, foreign of course, and days without any sunshine. the liquid
absence of any light. he was      smooth and dark and liquid. he was on
his way to kenya via paris. i was on my way home. for a small moment i
wished i was on my way to the continent he appeared to be, full of
jewels smoldering in their dark liquid light. wished i could go where he
was going      instead of slipping      so quickly past him      a kiss on
each cheek, then goodbye.

5. grief. both expressed and unexpressed. a woman who had given
birth to her baby four months too early showed me these pictures. small
body      like withered fruit      small and bruised and dark.  fallen. he had
fallen. like a small planet, like a tiny fragile star that spun too quickly
towards earth      with no control no     choice but to be
consumed by its own heat.

before death: wrapped in a small blue afghan. after death: ashes,
ashes. i managed not to cry in front of her. i just looked at her      for
an extra second      i just took it all in.

6. the unexpected injection of color. a man told me this. he liked to
chew lipstick off women's lips. he liked to suck their clip-on earrings into
his mouth and in a fit of passion spit them to the other side of the
room. i was told this while eating lunch. i have no reason for mentioning
it now. except for the shock/the picture of something so brilliantly red
or so dark plum almost blue      painting the inside of a man's mouth.

7. forty-five days until spring. forty-four. i watch old movies pretend
not to be counting.