Does the holiday season hit everyone this way? Like a speeding wall?
My only salvation this season (and I mean that in a religious sense) is reading poetry. Every morning, a little bit from a favorite book, and a few deep breaths. And then the day goes by in a freeway blur. Here’s a poem that made me breathe this morning:
Of Being
— by Denise Levertov
I know this happiness
is provisional:
the looming presences –
great suffering, great fear –
withdraw only
into peripheral vision:
but ineluctable this shimmering
of wind in the blue leaves:
this flood of stillness
widening the lake of sky:
this need to dance,
this need to kneel:
this mystery:
Visit https://racheldacus.net for more information and writing by Rachel Dacus.
hmm! & you’re back-to-blog
I’ve a vague idea I’d seen Denise Levertov sitting on steps at UC Berkeley years back, perhaps there for somebody else’s poetry reading or something; hadn’t taken much time with her writing — now I see she’s (while ago) left this world already — your Xmas occasion gives this short belated glimpse.
thx, d.i.