#240: jittery weather poems
Hello!
I’m back in your inbox, two days in a row. This feels like 2015, when this newsletter was a daily labour of love. But unlike yesterday’s newsletter, which was an ode to film photography, this one feels more like a downer. (Sorry not sorry!)
As you all may already know, the news of weather-related loss and destruction has been badgering down on us all, like the incessant rains. My friend in Himachal Pradesh saw the hill across his house washed away overnight. A friend in Goa told me she deleted Instagram because there were too many posts on people drowning. I’ve experienced Himachal in the monsoons myself while stuck indoors for a week, and it’s just so terrifying.
Yes, we all know climate change is real. But to romanticise the monsoons without thinking of the loss of lives, homes, people, pets, harvests…feels too callous. So I turn to poetry, because the weight of words keeps me grounded. Sigh.
Poetry Corner
Some powerful poems on jittery weather, climate change and the world we live in.
1. To Be Alive by Gregory Orr
To be alive: not just the carcass
But the spark.
That's crudely put, but…
If we're not supposed to dance,
Why all this music?
2. Inside the Compulsion to Wonder Lurks the Will to Survive by Dobby Gibson
Once awake, I tend to like it.
A puddle can recognize me. Then I look up
and I'm as anonymous as the sky.
And yet, in my hands, this terrible orb glows.
The ships, it reports, can now sail
straight through the Arctic, filthy bears
clinging to shriveling rafts of ice.
Tell me the truth, what does anyone care
inside the barber shop this morning
where everyone wants the regular again,
combs swimming in little blue aquariums.
What if this isn't late capitalism, but early?
One idea is to set the clocks ahead
one hour so we're closer to knowing
how it turns out. Another is the Roman ides,
or the 72 kō of Japan. Mist starts to linger.
Great rains sometimes fall.
The Buddhists have a word for it,
but the moment it's defined,
the thing itself vanishes.
The more we ask of this world
rises up through us, like an evaporation.
When I asked you what day it was,
you said the day after yesterday.
No matter where we move the glass vase,
it leaves a ring
3. Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now by Matthew Olzmann
Most likely, you think we hated the elephant,
the golden toad, the thylacine and all variations
of whale harpooned or hacked into extinction.
It must seem like we sought to leave you nothing
but benzene, mercury, the stomachs
of seagulls rippled with jet fuel and plastic.
You probably doubt that we were capable of joy,
but I assure you we were.
We still had the night sky back then,
and like our ancestors, we admired
its illuminated doodles
of scorpion outlines and upside-down ladles.
Absolutely, there were some forests left!
Absolutely, we still had some lakes!
I’m saying, it wasn’t all lead paint and sulfur dioxide.
There were bees back then, and they pollinated
a euphoria of flowers so we might
contemplate the great mysteries and finally ask,
“Hey guys, what’s transcendence?”
And then all the bees were dead.
4. Evening by Dorianne Laux (excerpt)
We know the land
is disappearing beneath
the sea, islands swallowed
like prehistoric fish.
We know we are doomed,
done for, damned, and still
the light reaches us, falls
on our shoulders even now,
even here where the moon is
hidden from us, even though
the stars are so far away.
(Read the full poem here.)
5. Flare by Mary Oliver (excerpt)
When loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields, consider
the orderliness of the world. Notice
something you have never noticed before,
like the tambourine sound of the snow-cricket
whose pale green body is no longer than your thumb.
Stare hard at the hummingbird, in the summer rain,
shaking the water-sparks from its wings.
Let grief be your sister, she will whether or no.
Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also,
like the diligent leaves.
A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of this world
and the responsibilities of your life.
Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.
In the glare of your mind, be modest.
And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling.
Live with the beetle, and the wind.
This is the dark bread of the poem.
This is the dark and nourishing bread of the poem.
(Can’t believe I’ve never read this poem by Mary before. Read the full poem here.)
Recommended Listening
Only one recommendation this week, by my favorite pianist after Chopin: Jerusalem by Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, a revelatory new album of piano pieces, unreleased or virtually inaccessible until now. Rest in peace, Emahoy. Can’t thank you enough for the music.
P.S. Thank you for sharing this gem, Rema. Can’t believe I missed it.
Links of the Week
Loving this collage series by Maya Land ^
Imagined Theatres (A collection of hypothetical performances written by an ever-growing array of theorists and artists of the contemporary stage. These dramatic fragments, prose poems, and microfictions describe imaginary events to explore what might be possible and impossible in the theatre.)
Atmos is a magazine exploring the intersection between climate + culture. I LOVE their IG page @atmos so much.
Yum. This Park in Poland is A Dream! (via Swiss Miss)
To-Do List by Grant Snider (for Common Good magazine)
“Who’s going to give you the authority to feel that what you notice is important? It will have to be you.”
-Verlyn Klinkenborg in Several Short Sentences About Writing (via Austin Kleon)
ALSO, I’ll be in Hyderabad with my amazing mother this weekend for her exhibition. Drop by and say hi if you’re in town. :)
That’s all, folks.
Stay safe and be kind,
Rohini
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