Otherwise

"In the Kitchen" Brita Granström

Otherwise

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.

At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

Jane Kenyon

from Poems to Live By in Uncertain Times, Joan Murray 

I've had a couple of events happen recently that made me realize just how close we are to having things be "otherwise". It's something worth reflecting on, that the things we did and saw and people we spent time with - might have been otherwise. That car might not have stopped in time, it might not have been so easy to move or take a breath. I hate cooking dinner? But my arms and hands work well together, and I have food to cook. These are tremendous gifts. Kenyon goes through the small events of her day as if counting her blessings. That's what counting blessings means - seeing clearly that things might be otherwise.

Not-Yet

Gabriele Münter

Not-Yet

Morning of buttered toast;
of coffee, sweetened, with milk.

Out of the window,
snow-spruces step from their cobwebs.
Flurry of chickadees, feeding then gone.
A single cardinal stipples an empty branch –
one maple leaf lifted back.

I turn my blessings like photographs into the light;
over my shoulder the god of Not-Yet looks on:

Not-yet-dead, not-yet-lost, not-yet-taken.
Not-yet-shattered, not-yet-sectioned,
not-yet-strewn.

Ample litany, sparing nothing I hate or love,
not-yet-silenced, not-yet-fractured, not-yet-

Not-yet-not.

I move my ear a little closer to that humming figure,
I ask him only to stay.

Jane Hirshfield

This theme keeps coming up. I don’t know if I’m making that happen, or if there’s just a lot of poems out there about this and I’ve just happened upon a glut of them? ("What if This Road, by Sheenagh Pugh, "Otherwise", by Jane Kenyon, "Sometimes", by Sheenagh Pugh looks at it from the positive side, and there might even be more, further back in blog-time.) It's something I want to hear over and over anyway. I want equilibrium. It's balance I'm looking for. Something between being thankful for what is, knowing it could be 'otherwise', knowing things can and will change, like in "What if This Road", and that those changes will increase in difficulty, but also seeing this as a challenge and an opportunity for good things - as Sheenagh Pugh does in "Sometimes".  I love the back-and-forth between all these poems. But there's something not being said - a poem I'll need to add. What is my reason for feeling hope, for knowing good will come? After all, this is not a tightrope I walk, it's a thread I follow. Not the god of Not-Yet, but the I Am, the I Never Change, and I Make All Things New.

Yes

Susan Ashworth.

Yes

It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could you know. That's why we wake
and look out – no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.

– William Stafford

The third poem with “yes”. Like the “let” poems, I thought I'd put together a few different sides. “Let” was a fascinating word to see in poetry, so loaded with meaning. “Yes” is too. As a way of approaching the world, in welcome, openness, receptivity, in anticipation of possibilities. Also, the idea of life itself being affirmative, having a positive conclusion, of there being a sense of sustained order underlying everything. William Stafford’s poem feels similar to Jane Kenyon’s "Otherwise" in its awareness of change, that circumstances could be quite different tomorrow, or in a minute, and that this should be an incentive for us to pay attention to what is good, to what is going well, to the "little" things like the beauty of the time of day, the way the light falls, the sounds of people and the hum of activity around us, the whole scope of the earth in it's movement. I like how "yes" is used only once, in the title. It feels like a breath of thanks, as if the speaker took a break from his work, sat down with a cuppa, looked out the window and thought "This is a good moment. Yes. It could have been different."