Open Window
DUST
by Dorianne Laux
Someone spoke to me last night,
told me the truth. Just a few words,
but I recognized it.
I knew I should make myself get up,
write it down, but it was late,
and I was exhausted from working
all day in the garden, moving rocks.
Now, I remember only the flavor -
not like food, sweet or sharp.
More like a fine powder, like dust.
And I wasn't elated or frightened,
but simply rapt, aware.
That's how it is sometimes -
God comes to your window,
all bright light and black wings,
and you're just too tired to open it.
This small poem is from a chapbook by Dorianne Laux titled, "What We Carry." The poems here remind me allegorically of the potent imagery from Tim O'Brien's short story collection, "The Things They Carried," stories exposing individual lives in a platoon of soldiers from their smallest possessions. Who we are, who we were before. . .ported forward into an uncertain future. Although not about war or anonymity, the poems in this slender volume are sharp, tight: transparent yet troubling. As though each poem, each moment or memory, has become an object in the poet's pocket.
I intended to begin 2016 on Quintessence with an upbeat poem: something about a clean slate, new possibilities. Instead, I found myself drawn to the flow of existence, of glimpses of truth from one moment to the next, My 2016 is also 2015 - as well as every accumulated year prior - just by another label. This idea that I am continuously silting new experiences, year to year. It will never be a "new" me, but a more layered me. More depth at the bottom. More debris and lost gold.
Someone spoke to me last night. . . Laux captures the experience of that rare awareness at the core of a chance conversation. In quiet, or sleep. We brush up against the profound. No words but a footprint. Laux tastes the truth, and it sits light, insubstantial; a micro imprint of muted history. Exhausted, vulnerable, she knows. She feels it, and lets it go. But she remembers the essence, and it settles within.
I look to this new year hoping the nuggets of truth discovered and absorbed along the way stay with me. That bright light and black wings find me. Praying the crack in the window widens, until finally and fully, I understand. To exist within the flow, and release what floats, absorb what lies still, sift the layers deep within. Is it not possible life will be ever more nuanced, meaningful, profound, if we honor the work and the fatigue of ordinary living? Open windows.
by Dorianne Laux
Someone spoke to me last night,
told me the truth. Just a few words,
but I recognized it.
I knew I should make myself get up,
write it down, but it was late,
and I was exhausted from working
all day in the garden, moving rocks.
Now, I remember only the flavor -
not like food, sweet or sharp.
More like a fine powder, like dust.
And I wasn't elated or frightened,
but simply rapt, aware.
That's how it is sometimes -
God comes to your window,
all bright light and black wings,
and you're just too tired to open it.
This small poem is from a chapbook by Dorianne Laux titled, "What We Carry." The poems here remind me allegorically of the potent imagery from Tim O'Brien's short story collection, "The Things They Carried," stories exposing individual lives in a platoon of soldiers from their smallest possessions. Who we are, who we were before. . .ported forward into an uncertain future. Although not about war or anonymity, the poems in this slender volume are sharp, tight: transparent yet troubling. As though each poem, each moment or memory, has become an object in the poet's pocket.
I intended to begin 2016 on Quintessence with an upbeat poem: something about a clean slate, new possibilities. Instead, I found myself drawn to the flow of existence, of glimpses of truth from one moment to the next, My 2016 is also 2015 - as well as every accumulated year prior - just by another label. This idea that I am continuously silting new experiences, year to year. It will never be a "new" me, but a more layered me. More depth at the bottom. More debris and lost gold.
Someone spoke to me last night. . . Laux captures the experience of that rare awareness at the core of a chance conversation. In quiet, or sleep. We brush up against the profound. No words but a footprint. Laux tastes the truth, and it sits light, insubstantial; a micro imprint of muted history. Exhausted, vulnerable, she knows. She feels it, and lets it go. But she remembers the essence, and it settles within.
I look to this new year hoping the nuggets of truth discovered and absorbed along the way stay with me. That bright light and black wings find me. Praying the crack in the window widens, until finally and fully, I understand. To exist within the flow, and release what floats, absorb what lies still, sift the layers deep within. Is it not possible life will be ever more nuanced, meaningful, profound, if we honor the work and the fatigue of ordinary living? Open windows.
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