The prompt line is a line from a poem by Maya Stein, included below, that seems to me to embody the state of the world right now. We are witnessing an assault on human rights and on the halls of justice itself, along with brutal and unjust wars. Things feel as if the world we knew has changed beyond recognition. I find myself walking a fine line between bearing witness, as a poet, yet wanting to offer something positive for a reader to take away, so as not to add more darkness to a world badly in need of light.
It feels like denial to write poems about spring blossoms and blue skies midst so much suffering. And yet it is that beauty – the generous gifts of Mother Earth – that saves us.
Maya Stein’s poems respond to the state of the world with a deep humanity, and a gratitude for the simple things that help us make it through – things toxic leadership cannot touch: loved ones around the table, warm bread fresh from the oven, neighbours caring for neighbours – and showing up to help when dark forces come near. I believe she wrote the second poem during covid.
What can we write to meet this moment?
For our prompt, let’s write whatever comes to us when we read the prompt title: This is no time to make things pretty. The topic is wide open. It need not be about politics at all. What I am looking for is what it is that is helping you make it through these tough times. What helps to keep your heart steady?
We welcome your thoughts in the comment section, and look forward to reading whatever comes up for you this week. Please do check back for late linkers towards the end of the week.
This Is No Time To Make Things Pretty
This is no time to make things pretty
Hence the meatloaf and its wobbly oblong in the pan where the batter
for banana bread usually goes. I’m not tucking in the bed sheets either.
This is no time to make things pretty. Let’s let the edges flop over like insolent teenagers.
Let’s make turbulent piles of laundry. Let’s scoop sloppy dollops of cat food into the dish,
mash it all the way up the sides. Look how Mother Nature has loosened
her girdle, the slapdash way the rain has been coming all day, divoting patches
where the spring blooms have been tentatively showing their faces. I’m taking her cues,
forgiving myself the inelegant dinner, the leaning tower in the linen closet, the animals
lapping carnivorously at their bowls. I’m aiming for a different kind of greatness,
the kind with mud at my heels. I’m sinking in as far as the ground will hold me.
Maya Stein
When We Get Through This
When we get through this, I want us to set a table with all of the loaves of bread
we’d practiced in our quiet houses. I want us clutching fistfuls of the cilantro we coaxed
from our city windowsills, and I want the nascent musicians, the ones who learned
old songs on their new ukuleles, or warbled choruses on isolated balconies, to take
the stage together. I want all the knitted, crocheted, stitched, and mended things pooled
at our feet, warming our ankles. I want us to greet each other in unfamiliar languages,
to tell the stories of those who have been lost. I want us to look, in unison,
toward the world millions of miles and light-years away, to take in what is before us,
and beyond us. I want us to wake to the magnitude of our fortune against the smallness
of our time. And then I want us to remember this, and to keep remembering.
Maya Stein
