Two poems...

Things are a bit strange around here these days. There is, after all, so much going on and at the same time, so little. The move is soon (very soon!) and along with that comes all these emotions: anxiety, excitement, even a bit of sadness over leaving this old apartment, and the general feeling of unease that comes from being unsettled. Part of me wants to go to sleep and wake up on moving day. Part of me wants to freeze the clock.

Moreover, it's been so very quiet these last couple of weeks. That's good and bad, I suppose. I like the time I've had to get work done--reading, writing, taking notes, working on my article and conference paper. Being able to do those tasks uninterrupted (without even classes to teach)and realizing that it is my actual job to do these things is, of course, quite wonderful.

And yet sometimes it gets lonely--loneliness exasperated by that lack of teaching I mentioned above and the day-to-day busy-ness of the semester. I find myself missing lots of people and wondering where in the world the summer has gone. Classes start in less than a month, which is (yes, you guessed it) good and bad. I thought I'd have a chance to do more and to see more people. It's hard to shut my brain off at night--I just lay there thinking and planning and worrying and thinking and...well, you get the point.

Anyway, all of this is a long set-up for an (admittedly somewhat pedantic) point about the poems below and poetry in general: when I found them (on the "Poem of the Day" podcast), for a moment, they kind of lifted me away from all of that stuff I've listed above but then dropped me back in that world feeling somewhat better, or at least, somewhat different. And that's very cool.

1) "Pumpernickel" by Philip Schultz. This one goes a place I didn't really see coming--takes us from bread-making to poetry writing and reminds us what both arts do--and why we do them. That last line is just amazing. Oh, and it inspired me to bake some bread this afternoon.

Monday mornings Grandma rose an hour early to make rye,
onion & challah, but it was pumpernickel she broke her hand for,
pumpernickel that demanded cornmeal, ripe caraway, mashed potatoes
& several Old Testament stories about patience & fortitude & for
which she cursed in five languages if it didn't pop out fat
as an apple-cheeked peasant bride. But bread, after all,
is only bread & who has time to fuss all day & end up
with a dead heart if it flops? Why bother? I'll tell you why.
For the moment when the steam curls off the black crust like a strip
of pure sunlight & the hard oily flesh breaks open like a poem
pulling out of its own stubborn complexity a single glistening truth
& who can help but wonder at the mystery of the human heart when you
hold a slice up to the light in all its absurd splendor & I tell you
we must risk everything for the raw recipe of our passion.

2) "Tree" by Jane Hirshfield. Perhaps I related to this one because of the upcoming move and packing up (and thinking a lot about) my own "clutter of soup pots and books." Things that, even as I carefully wrap them in paper and bubblewrap, seem so minor, so unsubstantial, when "immensity taps at your life."

It is foolish
to let a young redwood
grow next to a house.

Even in this
one lifetime,
you will have to choose.

That great calm being,
this clutter of soup pots and books—

Already the first branch-tips brush at the window.
Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.