– Raymond Carver
poetry
the whole world right here for the having
There’s that line – from the outside looking in, it’s hard to understand. From the inside looking out, it’s hard to explain.
Perhaps addiction can only be explained and understood by metaphor and poetry like the poems I have found in Kaveh Akbar’s book, Calling A Wolf A Wolf (more information here: http://kavehakbar.com/#/). I’m about halfway through and I’m holding back from reading more than one poem a day. I don’t want to finish this book. One poem a day blasts much needed space inside of me for contemplation, understanding, and hope.
Reading the lines in this poem, Being In This World Makes Me Feel Like A Time Traveler, is like recognizing myself in an interior mirror.
BEING IN THIS WORLD MAKES ME FEEL LIKE A TIME TRAVELER
visiting a past self. Being anywhere makes me thirsty.
When I wake, I ask God to slide into my head quickly before I do.
As a boy, I spit a peach pit onto my father’s prayer rug and immediately
it turned into a locust. Its charge: devour the vast field of my ignorance.
The Prophet Muhammad described a full stomach as containing
one-third food, one-third liquid, and one-third air.
For years, I kept a two-fists-long beard and opened my mouth only to push air out.
One day I stopped in a lobby for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres
and ever since, the life of this world has seemed still. Every night,
the moon unpeels itself without affectation. It’s exhausting, remaining
humble amidst the vicissitudes of fortune. It’s difficult
to be anything at all with the whole world right here for the having.
Dirge Without Music by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
Edge of Atlantic 