Hello Friends, and Happy National Poetry Month 2020!
As mentioned yesterday, I won’t be able to send a poem every day this month, and they may not have my usual in-depth analysis and commentary and related anecdotes. But I am going to at least get you a few poems!
<3 Ellen
As mentioned yesterday, I won’t be able to send a poem every day this month, and they may not have my usual in-depth analysis and commentary and related anecdotes. But I am going to at least get you a few poems!
<3 Ellen
Imaginary Conversation
You tell me to live each day
as if it were my last. This is in the kitchen
where before coffee I complain
of the day ahead—that obstacle race
of minutes and hours,
grocery stores and doctors.
But why the last? I ask. Why not
live each day as if it were the first—
all raw astonishment, Eve rubbing
her eyes awake that first morning,
the sun coming up
like an ingénue in the east?
You grind the coffee
with the small roar of a mind
trying to clear itself. I set
the table, glance out the window
where dew has baptized every
living surface.
■
You tell me to live each day
as if it were my last. This is in the kitchen
where before coffee I complain
of the day ahead—that obstacle race
of minutes and hours,
grocery stores and doctors.
But why the last? I ask. Why not
live each day as if it were the first—
all raw astonishment, Eve rubbing
her eyes awake that first morning,
the sun coming up
like an ingénue in the east?
You grind the coffee
with the small roar of a mind
trying to clear itself. I set
the table, glance out the window
where dew has baptized every
living surface.
■
“Imaginary Conversation” appears in poet Linda Pastan’s 2015 collection Insomnia.