#223: a pre-weekend mini newsletter 💌
Hello!
I know this newsletter is now 5 days late. I’ve been in recovery mode: groggy, cranky and too tired to look at the screen. But inspiration struck today for the first time in the whole week, so voila!
Poetry Corner
5 poems that made me sigh.
1. The Spring Cricket's Grievance: Little Outburst by Rita Dove
Tired of singing for someone else.
Tired of rubbing my thighs
to catch your ear.
When the sky falls tonight,
I’ll stand on my one
green leaf
and it will be my time,
my noise,
my ecstasy.
2. Girls Overheard While Assembling a Puzzle by Mary Szybist
Are you sure this blue is the same as the
blue over there? This wall’s like the
bottom of a pool, its
color I mean. I need a
darker two-piece this summer, the kind with
elastic at the waist so it actually
fits. I can’t
find her hands. Where does this gold
go? It’s like the angel’s giving
her a little piece of honeycomb to eat.
I don’t see why God doesn’t
just come down and
kiss her himself. This is the red of that
lipstick we saw at the
mall. This piece of her
neck could fit into the light part
of the sky. I think this is a
piece of water. What kind of
queen? You mean
right here? And are we supposed to believe
she can suddenly
talk angel? Who thought this stuff
up? I wish I had a
velvet bikini. That flower’s the color of the
veins in my grandmother’s hands. I
wish we could
walk into that garden and pick an
X-ray to float on.
Yeah. I do too. I’d say a
zillion yeses to anyone for that.
3. Until the Stars Collapse by Tonya Ingram
you owe it to yourself to quit being the apology. to
hold your hand and sing your favorite song. to
love another and see how far that will go. to love
yourself and forget where you were headed in the
first place. love is a funny story. it wakes up and
builds a plot. it wakes up and shapes you into the
kind of woman your mother studies. i am not per-
fect in it. i am not even remotely articulate. but it
is big, this love. it is airborne and triumphant. i am
no easy show. i hurt like the climb of my lineage. i
hurt on purpose. i hurt to not be hurt. no, none of
this is an excuse. just a blueprint. a map. come
find me when the day is bronze and the sorrow is
full. i am building my poem in this here heart. all
of it is a working title.
4. Those Who Carry by Anna Kamienska
Those who carry pianos
to the tenth floor wardrobes and coffins
an old man with a bundle of wood limps beyond the horizon
a woman with a hump of nettles
a madwoman pushing a pram
full of vodka bottles
they will all be lifted
like a gull's feather like a dry leaf
like an eggshell a scrap of newspaper
Blessed are those who carry
for they shall be lifted.
5. We Have Not Long to Love by Tennessee Williams
We have not long to love.
Light does not stay.
The tender things are those
we fold away.
Coarse fabrics are the ones
for common wear.
In silence I have watched you
comb your hair.
Intimate the silence,
dim and warm.
I could but did not, reach
to touch your arm.
I could, but do not, break
that which is still.
(Almost the faintest whisper
would be shrill.)
So moments pass as though
they wished to stay.
We have not long to love.
A night. A day...
Listening Loop 🌱
Today, I don’t feel like sharing any new music…Only this gorgeous Mort Garson album from 1976 that I keep coming back to over and over again.
As someone aptly wrote in the comments, “this album really makes you feel like a plant”. I hope it makes you feel like one too. 🌱
Links of the Week
Loren DiGiorgi’s musical take on the great composers having an argument. 😂
On my wishlist: The Ritual Deck
Long but essential read: Finding Awe Amid Everyday Splendor
I recently came across the most incredible project - Tree Drawings by Tim Knowles - wherein the artist attaches pens to tree branches and places canvases for the tree’s motions to be recorded as unique tree signatures.
Lost & Found: Rediscovering Books Through Their Untold Stories (Tara Books yumminess)
The Alipore Post x Amrutam
I’ve been a fan of Amrutam for a few years now, and really appreciate the effectiveness of their products and the approach to healthy lifestyle defined by Ayurvedic principles. If you’d like to try their products, use the coupon code THEALIPOREPOST for a 10% discount.
Parting words
I’ve been a reader of The Creative Independent for as long as I can remember, and find gems of human beings and words of wisdom in every single interview. I found this interview with poet and musician Alabaster dePlume fascinating:
“I don’t know what I’m doing and I am incomplete, and I can be sound, solid and cool with myself while being incomplete. I can forgive myself for not being enough and present myself that way. And there’s room for you, whoever you are. I’m very happy that you’re there and I’m very happy that you’re anywhere. I admire you that you’re there because it is tricky being alive. And they are doing it, aren’t they? Whoever they are. And they’re passing their eyes over your page and breathing and striving to exist and it’s noble. And it helps the rest of us. The more you are yourself, whoever you are, you make me more myself, too. And the longer you succeed in this striving, you inspire me to do the same thing.”
-Alabaster dePlume
Fill your weekend with curiosity and play. Cook something you’ve never tried before. Give a flower to a complete stranger. Anything unusual, really.
Sending love,
Rohini
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