Hi Mudpuppy,
Thanks for asking, and of course thanks for the compliment.
By way of reply, I'm going to post part of one of my favorite poems, Frank O'Hara's "A True Account of Talking to the Sun on Fire Island." (You can read the whole thing at poemhunter.com if you're interested.)
"Just keep on
like I do and pay no attention. You'll
find that people always will complain
about the atmosphere, either too hot
or too cold too bright or too dark, days
too short or too long.
If you don't appear
at all one day they think you're lazy
or dead. Just keep right on, I like it.
And don't worry about your lineage
poetic or natural. The Sun shines on
the jungle, you know, on the tundra
the sea, the ghetto. Wherever you were
I knew it and saw you moving. I was waiting
for you to get to work.
And now that you
are making your own days, so to speak,
even if no one reads you but me
you won't be depressed. Not
everyone can look up, even at me. It
hurts their eyes."
"Oh Sun, I'm so grateful to you!"
"Thanks and remember I'm watching. It's
easier for me to speak to you out
here. I don't have to slide down
between buildings to get your ear.
I know you love Manhattan, but
you ought to look up more often.
And always embrace things, people earth
sky stars, as I do, freely and with
the appropriate sense of space. That
is your inclination, known in the heavens
and you should follow it to hell, if
necessary, which I doubt."
I try to remember that advice--about getting to work, about letting the world into my life "freely and with the appropriate sense of space." I think that mostly because I was able to talk to my husband--and we've kept talking--my perspective has clicked back into place, and I'm grateful for it.
Thanks again.
daylily
