Thanks for sharing this poem. How interesting to think that we are sad from not understanding ourselves that in turn causes us to take risks with our one precious life. That lack of self awareness and understanding combined with sadness of “unknown origin” seems rather too common and that too is sad and hard to understand.
Beautiful poem. My post this week is on hatred. I have been scaring myself actually as I immerse myself in writing about all of the qualities of this complex human dynamic. I needed this poem today. Thank you.
I very much enjoy the almost conversational tone in this that makes it relatable. The way he sandwiches the poem with his personal writing related fantasies top and bottom and the fantastical utopian visions as the meat drew me in.
Do we wait because of our expectations or because of our realities? I tend to lean on this with the sanity of my thoughts. We wait for everything despite knowing deep down the outcomes, and I’ll take that instead of succumbing over the expectations we project and the realities we live in….
Norse’s piece touched me deeply. And then there’s Pablo Neruda’s take:
Keeping Quiet
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
Thanks for sharing this poem. How interesting to think that we are sad from not understanding ourselves that in turn causes us to take risks with our one precious life. That lack of self awareness and understanding combined with sadness of “unknown origin” seems rather too common and that too is sad and hard to understand.
Reminds me of a few Covid moments that I cherished when we were made to stop and the earth exhaled.
We wait..wait, and wait...there's no change.
Until
All of a sudden
All at once.
Everything changes.
"Oh, but don't mention love
I'd hate the strain of the pain again
A rush and a push and the land that
We stand on is ours
It has been before so it shall be again
And people who are uglier than you and I
They take what they need and just leave
Oh, but don't mention love
I'd hate the pain of the strain all over again
A rush and a push and the land that
We stand on is ours
It has been before, so why can't it be now?"
Morrissey (from the Smiths song, A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours)
was my reference point with the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
The math of poetry always rounds up.
Why wait?
Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. ―Orison Swett Marden
I am reading your substack now. It so speaks to me in this time! Right on!
Thanks for the kudos Corie!
That is so true! Life is not television. It is an active act of co-creation.
National Endowment of the Hearts!
Beautiful poem. My post this week is on hatred. I have been scaring myself actually as I immerse myself in writing about all of the qualities of this complex human dynamic. I needed this poem today. Thank you.
National Endowment of the Hearts.... isn't that what we're all waiting for?
Me too! Great poem.
I very much enjoy the almost conversational tone in this that makes it relatable. The way he sandwiches the poem with his personal writing related fantasies top and bottom and the fantastical utopian visions as the meat drew me in.
Good choice, thank you it made me smile ….although its truth is profound
So did it ever happen for Norse?
So grim, so tender
Bowie imagined it happening in the song Five Years. That was in 1972. We’re all still waiting.
All my life I've been waiting to live. Go live your life or stay dead forever.
Seems to me to be the long awaited answer to Don McLean’s poetry/song American Pie. Brings me joy just imagining this.
Do we wait because of our expectations or because of our realities? I tend to lean on this with the sanity of my thoughts. We wait for everything despite knowing deep down the outcomes, and I’ll take that instead of succumbing over the expectations we project and the realities we live in….