Good evening!
The season has begun to turn momentarily forgiving, temperature-wise, here in Washington, D.C. I took the day off yesterday to practice some self care and try to shut my brain off for a moment. I spent a sliver of my tax return on a massage and walked around the city, I admired the early-blooming cherry blossoms and ducked inside my jacket when the winds grew riotous, and I further honed my napping skills after watching the latest episode of The White Lotus. I certainly do not need to remind anyone that big headlines keep hitting, nor do I feel particularly capable of giving a summary of everything at the moment, but one big story is the return of the astronauts who have spent 9 months stranded in space.
I spent a lot of time today thinking about them – the absurdity of their circumstances and the distance between the world they left and the world to which they are returning. I decided that this week I would write a poem about it.
Thank you for reading. I sincerely hope that, wherever you are, you are able to savor little moments of stability as we all strive to make it lasting. As always, you can find me on Instagram and nowhere else on the Internet for now. If you enjoy this post please consider sharing it with your network or subscribing (for free!) if you haven’t already. I write poetry, fiction, and sometimes I just feel like having a quick rant.
Re-Entry
For a prolonged moment, untethered, I was the rising sun at every hour.
I was but an island of thought stranded in the infinite blank,
A pumping heart recycling filth and fury; somehow still divine.
I was nothing and unending all at once.
Where days have no discernment,
Nor bellowing wind…
Where history keeps racing by, and I, outside
Look in.
They shall make me into a martyr no matter my course
Where every border blurs into nothing
Like muscles in deep atrophy,
Or blood as unto concrete it should spill.
And lo the Pacific coast bathed in hellish orange ‘neath a plume of cataclysm, my eyes did see the true cessation of goodness gnash its teeth.
The depth of craving for just a moment's sweet reprieve,
A drop of silence guarded by an olive tree.
But my suspended wages whet the killing spree and further gild those padded pockets.
I count the passage of time in regime change and ballistic rockets
Scattered in contested lands and waters
With no concern for the bodies underneath.
The time passes just the same and so, too, shall I.
But for reentry and its inherent risk:
Let me burn atop the starving I could be exalted; the merciful ending of that pain we decided not to lessen.
Let me burn outside the White House, I would be forgot within a week,
And mocked for my resplendent desperation.
And should I burn above Gaza I might be mistook for righteous war;
When there is no such thing.
J.K.