#94 - Time is fleeting
Photo by Alfred Stieglitz
Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
Other poems to read this week:
"Don't look.
The world's about to break.
Don't look.
The world's about to chuck out all its light
And stuff us in the chokepit of its dark,
That black and fat and suffocated place
Where we will kill or die or dance or weep
Or scream or whine or squeak like mice
To renegotiate our starting price."
-Poem by Harold Pinter
"I think flowers enjoy their solitude
in the early dawn before the buzz begins.
I think sprinklers annoy them.
I hear one coming on.
I hate my poems."
-from A Morning Person by Mary Ruefle
"Under a low sky —
this quiet morning
of red and
yellow leaves —
a bird disturbs
no more than one twig
of the green leaved
peach tree"
-Silence by William Carlos Williams
"The morning after
my death
we will sit in cafés
but I will not
be there
I will not be"
-from The Spring Flowers Own by Etel Adnan
Recommended Listening:
End of the World - Lana Del Ray
Color Is A Beautiful Thing - Nina Simone
Happy Holidays - Peter Cat Recording Co.
Hope there's someone - Antony and the Johnsons
Links of the Week:
Quarantine Art: Dhiya Choudary (artwork featured)
I work with kids. Here’s why they’re consumed with anxiety. + Why everyone must change diapers
NoseToDiagnose: The Woman Who Can Smell Parkinson's
Write where we are now, a poetry project by Carol Ann Duffy
Why Poetry Is Having a Moment Amid the Global Quarantine
Instagram Loving:
Nether (one of my favorite poetry journals makes a comeback!)
Poetry Collaboration: The Alipore Post x Harper Collins India
Since the last newsletter, I've also published two more features in collaboration with Harper Collins India to celebrate contemporary poets. I selected three poems each from Kazim Ali's collection All One’s Blue, and Tishani Doshi's debut collection, Countries of the Body.
Happy reading! :)
-Rohini