Sunday, May 31, 2020

May 31: Sabbath, Endless Possibilities, Poem from "Kyrie"

Sunday afternoon.  Right after mowing the lawn.  Right before I have a Zoom Book Club meeting with family and friends.  I'm feeling a little exhausted at the moment, even though it's only 65 degrees outside and I didn't even break a sweat while pushing the lawn mower.

Sundays seem to sap my energy and motivation.  I don't really want to do anything else today, now that my grass is shorn down to an acceptable length.  I'm hungry and a little thirsty.  Maybe, later, I will take my dog for a walk, but maybe I won't.  That's just the kind of mood I'm in.

Perhaps this lethargy is a holdover from the days when doing anything on the sabbath was a sin.  Even Christ was charged with working on the sabbath.  He healed people, cast out demons, let his disciples pick wheat to eat on the seventh day.   Me?  I usually reserve Sundays for things that I just can't do any other day of the week--like mowing the lawn or cleaning the house or writing a new poem.  And preparing my myself for the upcoming work week.

This evening, I will be lucky if I make it to 10 p.m.  In fact, a nap on the couch sounds pretty good right now.  Since the pandemic began, I have noticed that the pace of my days has slowed considerably, allowing for things like naps without experiencing guilt.

Or maybe I will take my dog for a walk, and then take a nap.  The possibilities are endless as evening stretches into the miracle of night.

And for that, Saint Marty gives thanks.

poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

After I'd seen my children truly ill,
I had no need to dream that they were ill
nor in any other way imperiled--
no more babies pitching down the well,
no more watching from shore as my boy rolls
like a kicked stone from the raft, meanwhile
Kate with a handful of bees--
                                             when I was a girl,
I practiced in the attic with my dolls,
but Del went out of right mind, his fingernails
turned blue, and Kate--no child should lie so still,
her small excitable body held enthralled. . . .
After that, in order to make it real
I dreamed them whole.


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