THE WORLD, joining

us in the empty hour:

Two

tree trunks, black,

unbranched, without

nodes.

In the contrail, sharp edged, the

one free-

standing spathe.

 

We too, here in the emptiness,

stand by the banners.

 

~Paul Celan 

i'm still blank today. i wonder if there's a memory virus going around. or maybe it's overwhelm and underwhelm at the same time. there's a certain nurture in the daily dog life, though, luckily. and the home life, winter lozenge. it could be worse, and it's getting worse in the world—but that's elsewhere, isn't it?. it's the not here we're dealing with. trying to. maybe blankness is protection for the wary mind. i always had trouble recalling people's names. i thought it was because of shyness. now i feel like everybody has it even the non-shy. is it true? i was going to say i want to write poems but i'm blank, but that's no reason.  i imagine paul celan wrote from a blank place of strong feeling. he was a survivor. he survived in poems. the thing i keep trying to remind myself is write from where you are. let's say life is a poem sometimes we can and sometimes we can't write.