Weekly Edition #44
Art by Loulou Elliott
Grief by Barbara Crooker
is a river you wade in until you get to the other side.
But I am here, stuck in the middle, water parting
around my ankles, moving downstream
over the flat rocks. I'm not able to lift a foot,
move on. Instead, I'm going to stay here
in the shallows with my sorrow, nurture it
like a cranky baby, rock it in my arms.
I don't want it to grow up, go to school, get married.
It's mine. Yes, the October sunlight wraps me
in its yellow shawl, and the air is sweet
as a golden Tokay. On the other side,
there are apples, grapes, walnuts,
and the rocks are warm from the sun.
But I'm going to stand here,
growing colder, until every inch
of my skin is numb. I can't cross over.
Then you really will be gone.
Other poems I enjoyed reading this week: (Click the link to read the full poem)
"What words reach the way I touched you last night—
as though I had never known a woman—an explorer,
wholly curious to discover each particular
fold and hollow, without guide,
not even the mirror of my own body.
Last night you told me you liked my eyebrows.
You said you never really noticed them before.
What is the word that fuses this freshness
with the pity of having missed it.
And how even touch itself cannot mean the same to both of us,
even in this small country of our bed,
even in this language with only two native speakers." -from Ellen Bass's The Small Country
"I tremble to end these lines
that they do not seem
an unusual testament,
but rather a mysterious message
from the shade beyond,
lines dictated by the anxiety
of eternal life.
I finished them and yet I live on." -from Miguel de Unamuno's It is Night, in My Study
"It was like this:
you were happy, then you were sad,
then happy again, then not.
It went on." -from Jane Hirshfield's It Was Like This
"The night never wants to end, to give itself over
to light. So it traps itself in things: obsidian, crows.
Even on summer solstice, the day of light’s great
triumph, where fields of sunflowers guzzle in the sun—
we break open the watermelon and spit out
black seeds, bits of night glistening on the grass." -Night in Day by Joseph Stroud
Recommended Listening:
Joseph in the Bathroom - Sam Tudor
Wait for the Moment - Vulfpeck
Collected Pieces - Mary Lattimore
Biig Piig - Perdida
Flyin' Bamboo - Nitai Hershkovits feat. MNDSGN
Links of the Week: 30 Days of Genius Banana Ceramics Old School Cool How VSCO builds its film photo filters The Ultimate Guide to India's Farmer's Markets 7 Houses of the Future, According to the Past
What Were You Wearing? A Homemade Meal . . . From a Vending Machine
GIF by Libby VanderPloeg