Hello, my friend! I did not know what to write to you this week. I still do not know. I am just typing these words as they come. I think I would like to share words that stayed with me this week. I hope you would like them.
What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade by Brad Aaron Modlin
Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen
to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,
how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took
questions on how not to feel lost in the dark.
After lunch she distributed worksheets
that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s
voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep
without feeling you had forgotten to do something else—
something important—and how to believe
the house you wake in is your home. This prompted
Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing
how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,
and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts
are all you hear; also, that you have enough.
The English lesson was that I am
is a complete sentence.
And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation
look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,
and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking
for whatever it was you lost, and one person
add up to something.
I come back to this poem more times than I would choose to admit, my friend. What are the things you wish you were taught in school?
Go to the Limits of Your Longing by Rainer Maria Rilke
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
Book of Hours, I 59
I first came across this poem through a very beautiful movie called Jojo Rabbit and fell in love with it right when I saw it. Did a God beyond the clouds say all of this to me as well when He made me?
Leaves by Nikki Giovanni
On a rainy day
when I’m sitting
in a tree
looking for a friend
I hope you’ll be the one
standing at the root
holding out your arms
to gently catch
my fall.
Will you be there, my friend?
Small Kindnesses by Danusha Laméris
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”
Lovely, is it not? And now to my favourite! I do not know who wrote this. But whoever did, I am sending you loads and loads of hugs and love for you do not know how wonderful and amazing your writing is and how deeply I am touched by it. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
And kid, you’ve got to love yourself. You’ve got to wake up at four in the morning, brew black coffee, and stare at the birds drowning in the darkness of the dawn. You’ve got to sit next to the man at the train station who’s reading your favorite book and start a conversation. You’ve got to come home after a bad day and burn your skin from a shower. Then you’ve got to wash all your sheets until they smell of lemon detergent you bought for four dollars at the local grocery store. You’ve got to stop taking everything so goddam personally. You are not the moon kissing the black sky. You’ve got to compliment someone’s crooked brows at an art fair and tell them that their eyes remind you of green swimming pools in mid-July. You’ve got to stop letting yourself get upset about things that won’t matter in two years. Sleep in on Saturday mornings and wake yourself up early on Sunday. You’ve got to stop worrying about what you’re going to tell her when she finds out. You’ve got to stop overthinking why he stopped caring about you over six months ago. You’ve got to stop asking everyone for their opinions. Fuck it. Love yourself, kiddo. You’ve got to love yourself.
I am crying.
Here is a song for you, my friend. I hope it makes you feel good.
That is it, my friend. A little too tired to write anything further. I hope you stick to the things that feel like a warm embrace and never let them go. I hope you have a great week ahead with loads to be grateful for and be happy about. Take care of yourself, my friend.
Until next time,
Niks.
Nikki Giovanni✌️