My Blythe-girl, Zooey.
I Am Learning to Abandon the World
By Linda Pastan
I am learning to abandon the
world
before it can abandon me.
Already I have given up the
moon
and snow, closing my shades
against the claims of white.
And the world has taken
my father, my friends.
I have given up melodic lines
of hills,
moving to a flat, tuneless
landscape.
And every night I give my body
up
limb by limb, working upwards
across bone, towards the
heart.
But morning comes with small
reprieves of coffee and
birdsong.
A tree outside the window
which was simply shadow
moments ago
takes back its branches twig
by leafy twig.
And as I take my body back
the sun lays its warm muzzle
on my lap
as if to make
amends.
__________________________________
Goodbye to November!! You've been a wild month. xo
6 comments:
A funny thought came into my head as I read this. It concerned something I heard on the news this week about a plan from the 1960s for us (America) to nuke the moon in order to impress the Russians. We would indeed have "given up on the moon," and had we succeeded in knocking it out of orbit, we would have died as a result. There has to be a lesson in that about the importance of not giving up, the outcome being death, of one kind or another.
so often caught between these two impulses -- love for the small delicious details of the world that seems to be there waiting, always -- and a longing for some void beyond it, without even names to echo there ...
.
Curiously optimistic. Love the poem! I'll be in and out as I try to coax my computer to work again.
Hugs, Quid
Love this poem! (but, hey...it's Linda Pastan) :)
Lovely poem, and Zooey's adorable.
xo
Ahhhh, don't give up. That's too easy, the world would miss you. Unless of course, you want to give up on the part of the world that desperately needs giving up on, then I'm with you, haha. XOXO, Happy New Year!
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