Nothing Makes Sense Right Now

Except poetry

Is there anyone out there who is doing well in this moment?

If so, can you please share your secret weapon with me?

Nothing makes sense right now.

Except poetry.

All I have to offer this week are words from two of my favorite poets.

As David Whyte says, “It only takes one line of poetry to change your life.”

---

Of The Empire

We will be known as a culture that feared death
and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity
for the few and cared little for the penury of the
many. We will be known as a culture that taught
and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke
little if at all about the quality of life for
people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All
the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a
commodity. And they will say that this structure
was held together politically, which it was, and
they will say also that our politics was no more
than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of
the heart, and that the heart, in those days,
was small, and hard, and full of meanness.

-Mary Oliver

---

Instead of Depression

try calling it hibernation.
Imagine the darkness is a cave
in which you will be nurtured
by doing absolutely nothing.
Hibernating animals don’t even dream.
It’s okay if you can’t imagine
Spring. Sleep through the alarm
of the world. Name your hopelessness
a quiet hollow, a place you go
to heal, a den you dug,
Sweetheart, instead
of a grave.

-Andrea Gibson

---

I sat down to write this post at 8am, unsure of what to say.

I just knew I wanted to share these two poems, and that nothing makes sense right now.

Except poetry.

Then, I got on my support group call at 10am, and the facilitator read this:

“The project of the empire is to dull the senses.

The project of the poet is to wake up the senses.”

-Ilya Kaminsky

---

Maybe, wellness is the wrong goal in this moment.

Maybe, instead, hibernation is the secret weapon.

Maybe, for now, nothing needs to make sense.

Except poetry.

Progress.