What comes back. What we let back in. The long slow work of re-entering our own lives.

Return

The heavy weeks pass. What's left is the small, the ordinary, the dishes. This week we practice re-entering our own lives, slowly, on purpose.

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

The Journey

there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company

The Morning After

Describe the first ordinary thing you noticed this morning.

it’s the thirst of the eye
first thing in the morning
it’s always the light I’m looking for
my favourite: the morning light in summer
the unuttered light of a thought

a comforting presence, my books
a pair of red shoes waiting for me
a green dress waiting for you
so there is the wound of morning
but to see is to forget the name 
of what you see