split off for a sec I thought I might say something truthful but couldn’t come up with it and lingered in the rosy twilight unpacking an old suitcase I found under the stairs
sometimes I stay as still as possible and tell myself a limitless vista’s opening up when it’s not
the rain pounded madly on the roof
afterwards we sat on the porch shelling peas and quoting scripture
the birds in the melaleuca trees seemed tired
the sky reopened like a grocery store on a desert road
I came away from myself unstuck
and a sort of translucent orderliness like a small herd of gazelles entered my mind
Shara Lessley remembers the teaching of Stanley Plumly and his engagement with the work of John Keats. "The more I reflect on Stanley Plumly’s mentorship and the long arc of his writing, the clearer it becomes how much his example will continue to teach me. Not only about lyric poetry, but also apprenticeship and loss."
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"I’m not that old, but I’ve lived long enough to know that the lion’s share of my life is behind me. I know there are relationships I can’t hold on to, and places I can’t return to. I’m just beginning to see 'real time,' the arc of almost half a century, and how the generational waves, both violent and beautiful, define our species."
