a poet’s notebook
How does the writer's brain work? It is a bewilderment to me, why it must be this particular word, or that particular image. How is it that now, in this time of several national and global crises, I emerge from sleep holding to this juxtaposition:
i wake
my face is wet
the blue heron stands
one foot
on a slate roof
~sb January 2021
That’s a wonderful poem! Because how else does one confront the crisis-filled world we live in except by balancing on one foot. It reminds me, oddly, of the story about Hillel: A government official–or maybe a general–challenged the sage to explain the Torah, Judaism, while he, the general, was standing on one foot. Hillel responded: Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you. That’s the essence. The rest is commentary.
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