"Poetry is nearer vital truth than history" - Plato.

Dear reader,

Today is a quieter post. When I woke up yesterday morning I lay in bed listening to the sounds of Saturday: dishes being washed in the dishwasher, the clink of a spoon in a coffee mug, the howl of a dog next door. I want to share with you a poem that rolled into my head as I lay there, and then I want to share a poem that arrived in my inbox yesterday - Edward Hirsch is a beautiful, thoughtful writer. I hope my poetry eventually becomes something like his. For today, enjoy the quiet moments, when all you can hear is the gentle whir of a fan, or the click of a computer keyboard, or even just the faint music from your roommate's stereo. Write in a journal, go for a walk, listen to Ludovico Einaudi's "Nuvole bianche" on repeat in your car. Listen to the rain, or the wind. Be.

I tell myself this far too seldom. I offer it to you now, because Sunday is Sabbath, a time to rest, a time to be quiet.

Love, always.

Hilary

The sounds of love (by Hilary Sherratt... draft #1)

The clink of spoon on bowl

The hum of dishwasher

The piercing bark of next door's dog

The crinkle and groan of the bed as you reenter

The world before it awakes.

I hear my eyelashes flutter open

My hands smooth the quilt

Read stitches like Braille

I wriggle my toes towards yours

Stroke the jutting edge of your collarbone

Nestle into the crook of your coffee-cupped elbow

And sing back, love.

And now Edward Hirsch's poem... from the Writer's Almanac on September 25, 2010 (here):

Fall

by Edward Hirsch

Fall, falling, fallen. That's the way the season
Changes its tense in the long-haired maples
That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves
Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition
With the final remaining cardinals) and then
Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last
Settling into colorful layers carpeting the ground.
At twilight the light, too, is layered in the trees
In a season of odd, dusky congruences—a scarlet tanager
And the odor of burning leaves, a golden retriever
Loping down the center of a wide street and the sun
Setting behind smoke-filled trees in the distance,
A gap opening up in the treetops and a bruised cloud
Blamelessly filling the space with purples. Everything
Changes and moves in the split second between summer's
Sprawling past and winter's hard revision, one moment
Pulling out of the station according to schedule,
Another moment arriving on the next platform. It
Happens almost like clockwork: the leaves drift away
From their branches and gather slowly at our feet,
Sliding over our ankles, and the season begins moving
Around us even as its colorful weather moves us,
Even as it pulls us into its dusty, twilit pockets.
And every year there is a brief, startling moment
When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and
Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless
Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:
It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies;
It is the changing light of fall falling on us.