from Contradictions: Tracking Poems

Gwen Raverat

from Contradictions: Tracking Poems

1.

Look:        this is January      the worst onslaught
is ahead of us         Don't be lured
by these soft grey afternoons      these sunsets cut
from pink and violet tissue-paper      by the thought
the days are lengthening
Don't let the solstice fool you;
our lives will always be
a stew of contradictions
the worst moments of winter can come in April
when the peepers are stubbornly still      and our bodies
plod on without conviction
and our thoughts cramp down before the sheer
arsenal of everything that tries us:
this battering, blunt-edged life.


18.
The problem, unstated till now, is how
to live in a damaged body
in a world where pain is meant to be gagged
uncured      un-grieved over      The problem is
to connect, without hysteria, the pain
of any one's body with the pain of the body's world
For it is the body's world
filled with creatures      filled with dread
mishapen so      yet the best we have
our raft among the abstract worlds
and how I long to live on this earth
walking her boundaries      never counting the cost


Adrienne Rich

 

"This battering, blunt-edged life."

That phrase certainly feels true today.

And how do I live it? How reconcile my struggle and the struggle of others, how "connect" even to broken things and selves?

And that last line --

"Never counting the cost"

That's what I really want.

To live full-out, in spite of all the beat-downs.