Every night I want to sit and write something beautiful. Something provocative. Something thoughtful. Necessary. Every night the pressure builds up and explodes or slowly dissipates. Living a thoughtful, reflective life can be demoralizing when faced with the boredom of the mundane. Unless you shine a light on all the drab and ordinary moments as they pass.
Maybe it’s enough to grab a glass of wine and pull the Gillian Welch veil across your thoughts and see how you can make each minute shine. Play the keyboard like a guitar fret-board and allow the words to vibrate and ring out, like an empty open chord or a wave picking up force down in the infinite darkness.
Reveal the hours in the doctor’s waiting room. Flipping through your phone, trying to rid yourself of the Trump disease and the need to clothe your indignation and anger. Close Twitter for two minuets, no article or video will make him go away. Only you can expel his hate from your heart, by focusing on the moment and where you are. Focus on getting your child’s vaccine. Watch her act brave and face the very real terror of that needle.
The prick. The yelp. The reward for enduring pain. Is there more to life than that?
There was this morning with the guitar and the words of that song that her tiny seven year old soul seems to give itself over to. Where did that come from? That voice deep from her diaphragm? Her eyes closed? Did you teach her that? No way. Is it from exposure? Can she simply feel in a way that you only dream to feel?
There is nothing romantic about two hours at the optometrist or about buying a birthday present from the bookstore. Nothing worth sharing about the arguments in the car and the stores and the constant desire to raise a decent human being. But maybe there is a literature in parenting. Maybe the only thing necessary for poetry is the awareness of all the poems one can uncover and name by simply allowing for the simple truth that every moment has the potential for poetry.
You came home to a quiet house. Alone in the house for the first time in a long time. You ignore the ambition to get back on track, leaving the running shoes in the closet. You watched Michelle Obama on Stephen Colbert and are now convinced that the Trump to FLOTUS continuum spans the length of human decency.
You gave into your gluttonous appetite and lounged on the couch. Watching a movie at 6pm. What luxury is this? The movie made it hard to breathe. The tears welled up as you watched the literal face of racism and injustice. So much fear and hatred in the heart of a country that pretends to be so heroic. You cannot imagine a more rage inducing existence than to be black in America.
The movie ends. The family back home. The silence ended. These words are a poor substitute for the thoughts that swim through your consciousness on this boring Wednesday afternoon in October in your forty second year.
And to think that every person on the planet lives and writes and sings these poems in every second of everyday of their lives too. We are in there, up close and yearning, together.
Every night I want to sit and write something beautiful.
...
“Daddy? Has this Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump thing been forever?” Skyelar
“You mean the election? Feels like it, but no. It has been a year and it will be over soon, when we vote for who will be president.” Me.
“Vote for the girl!” Skye
“Every time.” Me.
Maybe it’s enough to grab a glass of wine and pull the Gillian Welch veil across your thoughts and see how you can make each minute shine. Play the keyboard like a guitar fret-board and allow the words to vibrate and ring out, like an empty open chord or a wave picking up force down in the infinite darkness.
Reveal the hours in the doctor’s waiting room. Flipping through your phone, trying to rid yourself of the Trump disease and the need to clothe your indignation and anger. Close Twitter for two minuets, no article or video will make him go away. Only you can expel his hate from your heart, by focusing on the moment and where you are. Focus on getting your child’s vaccine. Watch her act brave and face the very real terror of that needle.
The prick. The yelp. The reward for enduring pain. Is there more to life than that?
There was this morning with the guitar and the words of that song that her tiny seven year old soul seems to give itself over to. Where did that come from? That voice deep from her diaphragm? Her eyes closed? Did you teach her that? No way. Is it from exposure? Can she simply feel in a way that you only dream to feel?
There is nothing romantic about two hours at the optometrist or about buying a birthday present from the bookstore. Nothing worth sharing about the arguments in the car and the stores and the constant desire to raise a decent human being. But maybe there is a literature in parenting. Maybe the only thing necessary for poetry is the awareness of all the poems one can uncover and name by simply allowing for the simple truth that every moment has the potential for poetry.
You came home to a quiet house. Alone in the house for the first time in a long time. You ignore the ambition to get back on track, leaving the running shoes in the closet. You watched Michelle Obama on Stephen Colbert and are now convinced that the Trump to FLOTUS continuum spans the length of human decency.
You gave into your gluttonous appetite and lounged on the couch. Watching a movie at 6pm. What luxury is this? The movie made it hard to breathe. The tears welled up as you watched the literal face of racism and injustice. So much fear and hatred in the heart of a country that pretends to be so heroic. You cannot imagine a more rage inducing existence than to be black in America.
The movie ends. The family back home. The silence ended. These words are a poor substitute for the thoughts that swim through your consciousness on this boring Wednesday afternoon in October in your forty second year.
And to think that every person on the planet lives and writes and sings these poems in every second of everyday of their lives too. We are in there, up close and yearning, together.
Every night I want to sit and write something beautiful.
...
“Daddy? Has this Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump thing been forever?” Skyelar
“You mean the election? Feels like it, but no. It has been a year and it will be over soon, when we vote for who will be president.” Me.
“Vote for the girl!” Skye
“Every time.” Me.
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