September 9: Anxious Times, John Ashbery, "The Problem of Anxiety"

Sorry for my absence yesterday.  I'm still getting used to the obligations and needs of my fall schedule.  Last night, I found myself running from work to home to football game (where I watched my daughter play in the pep band).  Until I sat down on my couch at about 10 p.m., things didn't slow down.

I find myself filled with anxiety right now, mostly because of the changes in my day-to-day.  Teaching things and work things and poetry things.  I am like the metaphorical juggler, adding more and more bowling pins into my act.  Once I get used to it, I'm sure I'll be fine.  At the moment, it's easy to feel overwhelmed.

In these anxious times, Saint Marty needs to take some deep breaths, read some poems, and tell himself that the world isn't coming to an end.  Yet.

The Problem of Anxiety

by:  John Ashbery

Fifty years have passed
since I started living in those dark towns
I was telling you about.
Well, not much has changed. I still can't figure out
how to get from the post office to the swings in the park.
Apple trees blossom in the cold, not from conviction,
and my hair is the color of dandelion fluff.

Suppose this poem were about you - would you
put in the things I've carefully left out:
descriptions of pain, and sex, and how shiftily
people behave toward each other? Naw, that's
all in some book it seems. For you
I've saved the descriptions of chicken sandwiches,
and the glass eye that stares at me in amazement
from the bronze mantel, and will never be appeased.