In the blurry narrative of the world

It’s good to see clearly what’s written before us

And a relief to find a magnified view

And a comfort to share a language.

Curled on a chair in the winter rain

We arrive without edit;

The only missteps are when we forget where we are

Which is bound to happen in the middle of long stories

With many chapters

And bookmarks made of flotsam and fit.

There are passages we must reread, of course

And words we must look up

And those we make up entirely,

But in all this precious history

We now hold

A rare edition in our careful hands;

Never published, without genre,

Without end,

We return again and again;

Each time another scribble added in the margin

A newfound emphasis

Here,

Or there.

We will not be found on the bestseller list

And the reviews are forever out;

But in the fresh ink

And fragile pages

We know every word of this

Co-authored heart

In preparation of the coming dark

and the rising star

and the industry and commerce that surrounds us

with ribbon and receipt

I hereby declare

This December

To be one of mercy and light

Where all persons herein

That may be found curled around a wine glass

Or Kleenex or cheeseball

Or standing alone under an empty sky

May know with official proclamation that

They are well remembered and that

We all stand with you, now or once or soon

While snow falls inside you

And skaters spin without you

And winter comes again.

 

And while you are of course invited to walk among the carolers

Or have some figgy pudding

You are hereby released

From all your spanx and circumstance

From clenching smile and skinny-girl cheer

And may come as you are with a tear streaked face

Without a spangled sweater

Or a hostess gift

And may choose not to sing or to

Stay where you are

Without a story to bring to grandmother’s house

For let it be said that all who enter

This holy month

With or without a prayer or a hope

Will be greeted with comfort

And joy will meet you in your own sacred time

To place you back in the cradle

Of the world.

Descending into irony, and close up topics like spangled sweaters, is a signal to go deeper and look broader across the enormity of this horizon; delving and thinking with the deep and the thoughtful, like Proust, Rilke, Rumi, O’Donahue, where one simple line can hold the weight and the beauty of the heaviest fruit and return for you to feast upon time after time, long after the season has died and the trees are bare.

And I am fearful of the way I skim and skip across the water using the rhythm of the stones to carry all sound, delighting with a flick of the wrist and the familiar use of childish ways, but taking us back to where we’ve already been and staying on top to avoid the stilt and the stir, to avoid losing my way in these mired, muddied depths.

Am I here to herald simple words that adhere to bumpers and jingles; is the whole of my truth already sung? Or is it that I’d rather be loved than known? The words that come nimbly and quickly jump over candlesticks without touching the flame, curled in nurseries calling goodnight to the moon. They grew in a tree in Brooklyn, in the back of a wardrobe, in a secret garden; but the ones I long to speak stay silent at 20,000 leagues, in the belly of the whale, in distant moors and cobbled, shadowed streets.

And what use, this pursuit of the ordinary? If I can’t make lovely a simple branch, or unbury the lost from the floor of the sea, what use am I? Oh the places you’ll go, when compared to a summer’s day; Oh red fish, blue fish is this winter of my discontent! Until I know my voice, my words are neither here nor there, or anywhere, close to the depths beneath me.