"It's a beautiful moment, just go with it. Put one foot in front of the other. Don't worry, there is no cliff. The earth will appear if you walk confidently into the future." - Glen Hansard

Relevant then, relevant now.

Original Sin

That was one idea my mother
always disliked. She preferred her god
to be reasonable, like Emerson or Thoreau
without their stranger moments.
Even the Old Testament God’s
sudden angers and twisted ways
of getting what he wanted she’d accept
as metaphor. But original sin
was different. Plus no one agreed
if it was personal, meaning
all Adam’s fault, or else some kind
of temporary absence of the holy,
which was Adam’s fault as well.
In any case, it made no sense
that we’d need to be saved before
we’d even had the chance
to be wrong. Yes, eventually everyone
falls into error, but when my sister and I
were babies she could see we were perfect,
as we opened our eyes and gazed up at her
with what she took for granted as love,
long before either of us knew the word
and what damage it could cause.

Lawrence Raab

Week 7

I know where he put his hands,
his mouth.
They slid along my legs.
I felt him taste me.

I wish I could stop my mind
from thinking
in moments like these.
It's always going,
always trying to memorize.
So frightened of losing the memory,
the thoughts,
the ideas.

It's as if perfection happens only in those moments
never to be returned to,
as if the rest of my days will wear on
and in the darkness to come,
I will think to that time in Ireland
where I had briefly experienced happiness.

Clara: In the Post Office

I keep telling you, I’m not a feminist.
I grew up an only child on a ranch,
so I drove tractors, learned to ride.
When the truck wouldn’t start, I went to town
for parts. The man behind the counter
told me I couldn’t rebuild a carburetor.
I could: every carburetor on the place. That’s
necessity, not feminism.
I learned to do the books
after my husband left me and the debts
and the children. I shoveled snow and pitched hay
when the hired man didn’t come to work.
I learned how to pull a calf
when the vet was too busy. As I thought,
the cow did most of it herself; they’ve been
birthing alone for ten thousand years. Does
that make them feminists?
It’s not
that I don’t like men; I love them—when I can.
But I’ve stopped counting on them
to change my flats or open my doors.
That’s not feminism; that’s just good sense.

Linda Hasselstrom

Week 6

I want little children
to place little tealights
around the house one day.
I can see my girl now,
she has big brown eyes
and dark bangs
and I know in her heart she'll carry a light,
a little tealight if you will,
with a flame that never wavers
no matter how the wind blows.
I handed it to her
the second she was born,
my gift to her.
Flames are not diminshed when they are shared,
neither does love.
I hope one day I will have the chance to sit down and teach her that.

Riveted

It is possible that things will not get better
than they are now, or have been known to be.
It is possible that we are past the middle now.
It is possible that we have crossed the great water
without knowing it, and stand now on the other side.
Yes: I think that we have crossed it. Now
we are being given tickets, and they are not
tickets to the show we had been thinking of,
but to a different show, clearly inferior.

Check again: it is our own name on the envelope.
The tickets are to that other show.

It is possible that we will walk out of the darkened hall
without waiting for the last act: people do.
Some people do. But it is probable
that we will stay seated in our narrow seats
all through the tedious denouement
to the unsurprising end—riveted, as it were;
spellbound by our own imperfect lives
because they are lives,
and because they are ours.

Robyn Sarah

Week 5

"You are amazingly complex.
You make me want to read."
That's what he said to me,
his big blue eyes locked onto mine.
My smile gave me away,
or at least a part of it.
And that, he told me,
started a symphony deep within;
his heart started drumming,
the beat raced to his brain
and made poetry exit his lips
and enter mine.
It had been a while for both of us,
laying in bed,
writing prose with our touches.
These things are essential in the moment,
so I freeze them in memory and ink.
The rest will disappear into nothing.
Memory fades faster than we anticipate.

Week 4

I spent the night
with a Celt in bed
and he wasn't you,
even when I closed my eyes.

He was close, though.
He sang to me
like I imagined you would,
and kissed my lips
and talked about life, the universe,
and how we fit in it.

I could tell he liked me
and he could tell I liked you,
and maybe liked him a little too.
Perhaps it was a sign I should have moved on
or perhaps it was a sign
that I should stay right here.

Either way, I got a taste of what it was like.
Me and you,
and it was good.

Week 3

Been debating a "Trouble with Boys" collection.

I love the way my name sounded in his mouth.
He made it magical,
or at least his accent did.
He would say it just to hear me gasp
and so he could cover my mouth with his.

I had joked with him before that night
about how I must have been a Celt
in an alternate life,
and he agreed with me.
"No one can have that much melancholy and wit
and not have some Celt in them."

The first time I had him in my bed,
I was a bit surprised;
his face was not what I wanted it to be.
But in the dark as we lay,
eyes closed,
he reached out and whispered my name,
and I could pretend that it was all okay.