Meditation 20

2/2/20

She knew a woman who lived in the house of the woman who died at the hand of her tenant, by fire or by gunshot. The woman who owned the house worked in the library; she looked familiar. She belly-danced. I might have seen her at the old Egyptian place, a middle-aged white woman thrusting her belly forward, my friend’s partner’s straying eye but brief. Anne was guardian ad litem at a house where a sumo wrestler was killed over meth. Next door, a young mother beat her son when his kind step-dad was away. Up the hill, a man keeps his disabled parents hostage on the lower floor, while he goes surfing in his van. We tell ourselves it’s always been bad. That despair is their friend, not ours. The practice is about facing death, but we think of that death as ours, not our republic’s by which it stands, one nation indivisible, with. The poems aren’t so much about love but the damage we leave, if we’re lucky. He wants to translate old poems into new, render them honest in their confessions to inadequate feeling. I open the old poet’s book and find an inscription--to me,--“with love,” two days after a birthday. He gave me a bear hug in a thick sweater. Lived in an old fire house with his poet’s wife and children. Paid ambivalent homage to Stevens, though he was a Williams man. This is what it will be like, Bryant says, putting one foot in front of the other, not calling attention to yourself, not saying what might be reported. Cloak your words, as in a poem. (And take his name out next time.) The reader comes later, but there will be no trace of you at your place of work. Soon to be acquitted, the president rescinds the ban on landmines. Just because he’s guilty doesn’t mean we should evict him.