I write every day. Sometimes, it's simply a blog post. Other times, it's a new poem or lyric essay or, less often, short story. If I was offered a million dollars to give up writing, I don't think I'd take it. Writing keeps me sane in an insane universe.
Billy Collins gives up writing
Returning the Pencil to Its Tray
by: Billy Collins
the first bits of sun are on
the yellow flowers behind the low wall,
people in cars are on their way to work,
and I will never have to write again.
Just looking around
will suffice from here on in.
Who said I had to always play
the secretary of the interior?
And I am getting good at being blank,
staring at all the zeroes in the air.
It must have been all the time spent
in the kayak this summer
that brought this out,
the yellow one that went
nicely with the pale blue life jacket—
the sudden, tippy
buoyancy of the launch,
then the exertion, striking
into the wind against the short waves,
but the best was drifting back,
the paddle resting athwart the craft,
and me mindless in the middle of time.
Not even that dark cormorant
perched on the No Wake sign,
his narrow head raised
as if he were looking over something,
not even that inquisitive little fellow
could bring me to write another word.
I did a lot of busy work today. Nothing exciting. I taught online. Attended a couple meetings. Busted my ass to get lots of things off my plate. Of course, my plate is never completely empty, but I was able to make the Brussels sprouts and sauerkraut disappear. (You know what I mean--those things you keep pushing off because you simply don't want to face them.)
This evening, I screened a movie at the library. It was a beautiful film titled The Last Ecstatic Days and was a documentary following a guy named Ethan Sisser who is dying of stage 4 brain cancer. The movie documents the last 12 or 13 days of his life and his eventual death. Now, I know that sounds depressing, and it was a little. But it was also a forceful reminder of how important it is (even when facing a terminal illness) to embrace joy and love every day.
That's what I'm trying to do tonight. Spread joy and love with my writing. I truly can't imagine a life without words, unlike Collins.
Saint Marty's moment of hope from today: my wife's sister and her husband for helping me replace a door in my garage.
A second moment of hope: a sunrise so beautiful it's impossible to look away.
❤️
ReplyDelete