I suppose I should be writing at least one poem because it is National Poetry Month and because part of my identity is as a poet in the world. But I’m struggling because I cannot find the words.
I want to write a poem that is a love letter to the world, but I don’t have the words to write it. The language in which I write has a vocabulary of over one million but, right now, I can hardly access one hundred.
The words to which I still have access insist on their distance.
They refuse to connect into sentences.
These words insist on their self-isolation.
The Insist List (Selected from the Top 100):
Mask
Grief
Sing
Disorientation
Reprioritization
Lack
Kindness
Quarantine
Risk
Sanitize
Contagious
Experimentation
Rage
Cook
Glob
Joy
Loss
Confusion
Humor
Body
Bag
Spread
Stay
Temperature
Sadness
Curbside
Lockdown
Six
Feet
Walk
Focus
Flour
Stay
Home
Hospital
Dance
Empty
Shelf
Safe
Essential
Workers
Nineteen
Cough
Virtual
Book
Beaten
Deserted
Lonely
Death
Renew
I’ve tried all the tricks in the book to get these words to form lines, then sentences, but they refuse, even if I try to string them together with less resistant words, like: Perhaps, maybe, possibly, or even words like and, or, before, after.
Reader, I gave up.
Reader, I looked instead for a way to connect with people instead of the page and I asked those people for help.
Sentences that connect people to people:
Today, I love my family—both blood ties and otherwise familial connections—whose presence in this world shines a bright light in the ever-encroaching darkness.
Today, I miss my normal body temperature; I am looking forward to the days ahead when I will beat this viral infection and all will be well again. (Stephanie H.)
Today, I love my yoga studio for teaching classes on Instagram Live.
Today, I miss my yoga studio, live and in person. (RJ S.)
Today, I love that this virus is making us work a little harder at connecting with each other, even if it is through technology.
Today, I miss being in the rehearsal hall, and work studios, with my collaborators. (Deborah B.)
Today, I love my clients, who keep giving me work.
Today, I miss hugs. (Jodi L.)
Today, I love people.
Today, I miss my mom. (Sherri S.)
Today, I love the stillness of the world and the way nature is asserting its power over the planet.
Today, I miss the Florida ocean and the beauty of a sunrise. (Pittershawn P.)
Today, I love the cherry blossom tree in the daffodil glen behind our flat.
Today, I miss drinking tea with my friend Sharon at 8 a.m. before she goes to work…trotting down the alley in Colorado with my mug… (Bhanu K.)
Today, I love my friends and family who keep checking on me and each other.
Today, I miss President Obama. (Lisa C.)
Today, I love the damp soft air of spring in Maine, a certain kind of cold with deeper rain roots that comes through as the ground opens and brings the fierce and frost-surviving crocus up.
Today, I miss my beloveds in NYC and in the West and in Europe—chosen and blood family who touch my heart and help me remember it. (Bea G.)
Today, I love this cup of Yorkshire Gold Tea with Cream & Sugar.
Today, I miss the TV show Reading Rainbow. (Camille P.)
Today, I love the wisteria bursting in bloom over the garage.
Today, I miss having my friends over for dinner. (Victoria N.)
Today, I love the grandfather who taught me about making “Slumgullion”, a soup from all the things I can scrounge from the leftovers and random things in my refrigerator and pantry.
Today I miss that same grandfather, who could tell stories in his sleep and keep us entertained for hours. (Rebecca M.)
Today I love the wind.
Today I miss this quiet corner of a nearby bar that I stop by once a week to read and write and have a cup of soup—they, interestingly, have really good soup! (Ron E.)
Today, I love the steady presence and calm of my husband beside me.
Today, I miss the freedom to physically share the same space with my sons. (Aimee L.)
Today, I feel better than yesterday after a family housecleaning party in which Jimi Hendrix was blasting and all the doors and windows were flung open to the chilly spring afternoon.
Today, I miss being able to turn on NPR and just listen without a wave of anxiety. (Suzanne L-C.)
And because of their words, as if by magic—the magic of connection—my own words stopped resisting and I could make sentences again:
Today, I love ginger and turmeric and coriander and pepper and oranges and lemons.
Today, I miss daydreaming for hours on end.
4/13/2020
Vermont
Today I am missing. Will I return soon?