Sublime

How much space for remembering is there in a day? How much should there be? I think about this in my poetry. I don’t want to be a nostalgist. Yet I feed on memory, need it to make poems, the art that is made of the stuff I have: my life and the world around me.

“Adversity introduces us to ourselves” was originally attributed to Albert Einstein, but spoken in this particular version by President George W. Bush on September 14, 2001, at the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance Service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

more at home with the unruliness of the world than I was, more willing to let it all in without distress.

Here was the theory of racial equality about to be put into practice, and she only hoped she would be equal to being equal.

Bring who you are in this moment to the text.

Their trust in the world seemed infinite, their forward progress in it entirely assured.

a screen, a Japanese one, perhaps, with rich and mellow,…

“I’m Mrs. Burns-Cooper,” said the woman, “and after this, well, it’s all right this time, because it’s your first time, but after this time always use the back entrance.” There is a pear in my icebox, and one end of rye bread. Except for three Irish potatoes and a cup of flour and the empty Christmas boxes, there is absolutely nothing on my shelf.