allbornperfect

A Franz Wright Poem

2009-02-12T06:53:00.000-08:00

Don't try to 'understand' it, just read it and let it happen:

The Poem

In morning rain a dark
vast rustling mass of lilacs

summons me (greener
than the dreams of God), it

troubles me
awake, a

smemory--

--Franz Wright (from "God's Silence")

2009-02-11T07:13:00.000-08:00

Written this morning, as I watched the sky go from cloudy to blue:

Sky

Nothing’s more important
than these few moments
alone with you, emerging,

starting to kick inside me.
You’re out there, too
in the wide wide sky:

today’s is a Titian
over brick Flatbush
apartment houses,

red pyramidal rooftops.
I’m remembering Florence,
and flying on a scooter

(what was his name?)
my hair streaming
in the Florentine dusk

or across his pillow,
next to a table, laden
with eight vials of cologne.

All that mind-losing
in sex and art
followed by carbonara

and the plane ride home.
Buckled in by a window,
the sky’s fickle shape

kept shifting.
Now, I’m hanging onto
its limitless blue

while I can.
Sky,
don’t slip away

while words ignite
on this ray
of sunrise.

--Carla Drysdale

2009-02-09T05:27:00.000-08:00

SWAP THIS
How to live well on practically nothing

Swap: to exchange, barter, or trade, as one thing for another: He swapped his wrist watch for the radio. –verb (used without object) 2. to make an exchange. –noun 3. an exchange: He got the radio in a swap. Also, swop. Origin: 1300–50; ME swappen to strike, strike hands (in bargaining); c. dial. G schwappen to box (the ears)

Is it possible to preserve our lifestyles in these hard times through a "swap economy?"

During the winter holiday, as our borrowed old Jeep sped along New York’s Taconic Parkway, framed by spiky branches of winter woods and a peacock blue sky, it hit me. Despite having just been laid off—for the fourth time in eight years—I felt bruised by another "redundancy," but essentially I was where I wanted to be. I was with the family I’d dreamed about having and actually managed to create, (though I didn’t get started until later in life).

My husband, two small boys and I were off to an ex-colleague’s weekend Catskill mountain house to play for four days, while my friend and his family visited relatives out of state.

As the Jeep’s speakers belted out the Beatles' “Can’t Buy Me Love,” I realized that although we didn’t own the Jeep or the house, we did own this experience and this moment.

Through the cooperative spirit of "swapping," where each party gains something, (even if just peace of mind because someone's watching their stuff while they're away), we had the gift of a few days away in the Catskills.

Our friends had lent us their jeep so that they wouldn't have to pay hundreds of dollars to park it at the airport while they were visiting family. As for the vacation house, we were essentially "house-sitting" for another friend and his family.

At the end of the next day’s snow tubing adventure, I would tuck our ruddy-cheeked children into bed, exhausted and happy. And the voice I would hear singing them to sleep was my own.

What about you? Do you have any swapping stories or ideas to share? Post'em here!

All Born Perfect

2008-12-21T18:56:00.000-08:00

Tarot reading today. She said, "don't hold back, go for it." (Do they all say that?) Since I'm calling this blog All Born Perfect, here's the poem that goes with it, to be published in The Same this Spring:

All Born Perfect

Objects of my life
strewn across this table,
laid down in the precision of words:
green apples from a basket,
notebook and pen,
what I will say
and even what I won’t.

The old sorrow--
the one that won't go away
no matter how much healing
through talking, pills, sex, wine,
even vengeance--
has become a blind dog now
its snout resting on paws.
Rilke said the dragons of fear
really just want our love.

The old sorrow remains
despite the distractions and good news
and good weather.
Everything that’s happened.
Even my children don’t erase it.
Instead they gather
new ones for themselves
they imagine no one else carries,
all born perfect with howling needs.

Does anything change as we
learn to read, write,
submerge our needs?

I have gone away to motherhood
and in that place where mothers stood
there is silence.

“You will write again,” said Stanley Kunitz
in my dream.
“You will speak
in a green voice
you hardly recognize.
Trust that voice.
A child’s song is in that voice.”
--Carla Drysdale