30 minutes
neighborhood
50 degrees
Went on a walk with Delia and FWA. He’s home for Easter weekend. We talked about the show Russian Doll and the 4th dimension and the limits of language and how it shifts meanings and experiences of the world. FWA wondered what it might feel like to experience the world outside of language and I talked about my work on this log and with poetry, particularly soft attention and my 10 things practice. I mentioned Mary Oliver’s poem “The Real Prayers Are Not the Words but the Attention that Comes First.” I pointed out the small stone embedded in a tree that reads, = > ÷.
Years ago, I remember feeling disconnected from FWA, not knowing how to talk with him, wondering why he was so distant. A deep sadness. I couldn’t have imagined (or hoped for) our wonderful, wandering conversation this afternoon. Not the same, but an echo of the ones I used to have with my mom.
It was not raining. Things felt open and possible, not closed and finished. Everything almost opposite of Bert Meyers’ poem, “Rainy Day.” Even so, I’ll post it here for later:
Rainy Day/ Bert Meyers
Outside, nothing moves: only the rain
nailing the house up like a coffin.
Remember, in childhood, when it rained?
Then, the whole world sailed down the alley:
leaves, paper, old shoes, the buildings,
everything like a circus going to sea.
Now, the rain, the iron rain, with its little keys
is closing all the doors . . .
and I think we’re all dead. See how the sky
sits like a tombstone on the roofs.