Flotsam and Jetsam

Confused, happy jetsam.

Flotsam and Jetsam

You asked me why on God’s green Earth, 
first, what a phrase, 
was I smiling 
too far out
in that 40 degree January 
water. 
Perhaps buoyancy,
numbing, dumbing, or even
pain, but rather than chittering words
my right hand emerged
from shimmer and, like a keynote
or 4:33, gestured at the morning, 
mother of pearl world. 

In Mancora, a young boy punted 
a soccer ball deep into the break,
floating liberated and alone.

His father on the shore reddened at the carelessness. 
Whisked like a storm toward the child, 
sand sparking off of his heels,
crashing waves like a foley artist.

He stopped, turning —
perhaps remembering 
the promise of a parent and the tide:
the change,
the sway,
in time
the return.

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The last few weeks has been full of conversations that teeter on the edge of severe and seductive, dire and daydream – a sense of directionless fear and, sometimes, although less often, directionless hope.

Alongside those conversations, here’s a range of some of the ideas that I’ve encountered and carried like a companion this week (I’ve needed them!):

Ezra Klein on his podcast with Chris Hayes

The obvious thing to say is: The opposite of doom is hope. But I think the opposite of doom is curiosity […] I don’t think it’s utopia. I think it’s something about curiosity, interest, beauty. There is this way that doom is a belief that we know how things are going to go.

Wisława Szymborska in her poem Among the Multitudes

I might have been myself minus amazement,
that is,
someone completely different.

Carl Phillips in his poem Regime

It’s hard
to believe in them,
the beautiful colors

of extinction; but
these are the colors.

4:33 (in the poem) is a reference to John Cage’s piece of music where the performer uses the lid of the piano keys to queue different movements for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. Whatever sounds happen in the room during that period are the music. It’s somewhere between performance art and a meditation. Regardless, music and sound feel different afterwards.

The poem today was inspired by the image, which is why it includes the rare Into Wind picture of me. My little floating head reminded me of the soccer ball and then the two images just melded. After all, what’s more severe and seductive than the sea?

With Gratitude,