Author: Christina's Words

“The darkness around us is deep.” ~ William Stafford

“For Every Action” by Heather Void

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry2 Comments

I replaced my glasses lenses with those that filter in
every event through the translucence of temporality and
made a valiant effort to appreciate how temporary we are-
Not we as in you and I, but we as in this new combination from
the conservation of masses- take all the people and put them
together, you can call it a mixture but it is more like chemical
bonding, because they become something different: a crowd,
the same way that the us made from you and me can die (or no
let’s not say die let’s say become lonelier) without our individual
beings completely arriving at the bottom of the extinction list.
however it won’t ever be the same; we knew that signing on-
we aren’t completely compounds, though those have different
properties from the elements that are creating them. we are
chromosomes, darling; sparking with eagerness to show what
wonders we contain, and in the process of prophase, losing some
of what you and I used to say “I am” to, in favor of this sum of
factors that we have blended in a set ratio in the right
conditions as we sit and stargaze at our future, hoping for a
supernova, since if we have to cease to exist we might as well
explode.

“For Every Action” by Heather Void

“For Every Action” is shared courtesy of Heather in honor of National Pi Day. No, not apple pie, but pi pi — “3.14159 … pi.” Stop by and see more musings on pi (and some brilliant poetry) by Heather at her blog HeatherVoid. Thanks, Heather! -christy

(My nerdy contribution was posting this at 9:59 am local; 3+1+4+1:59 … )

“The Name of a Fish” by Faith Shearin

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

If winter is a house then summer is a window
in the bedroom of that house. Sorrow is a river
behind the house and happiness is the name

of a fish who swims downstream. The unborn child
who plays the fragrant garden is named Mavis:
her red hair is made of future and her sleek feet

are wet with dreams. The cat who naps
in the bedroom has his paws in the sun of summer
and his tail in the moonlight of change. You and I

spend years walking up and down the dusty stairs
of the house. Sometimes we stand in the bedroom
and the cat walks towards us like a message.

Sometimes we pick dandelions from the garden
and watch the white heads blow open
in our hands. We are learning to fish in the river

of sorrow; we are undressing for a swim.

“The Name of a Fish” by Faith Shearin, from The Owl Question. © Utah State University Press, 2002.

“What the Dead Know” by Mark Kraushaar

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry2 Comments

They know to keep quiet.
But they would tell you don’t worry.
They would tell you there’s
sloping gentle fields and a marvelous light.
They’d whisper, Mister,
take it easy, they would signal Madam, buy a hat.
They would tell you start again, rent a room, move
forward, breathe a little, read a little,
take a walk, watch your step.
They would tell you God
wears plaid pants, six-eyelet
oxfords, and a wrist watch, Helbros, gold.
They would tell you God’s
a girl in third grade knotting Her shoe.
They would tell you God’s a man with cracked glasses
mowing His yard, or He lives with Lilly,
His wife, and a son named Sal.
They would tell you He works in auto body repair
and plays the guitar.
They would tell you He’s thought up Himself,
that He thinks up botany and basketball,
eczema, mustard, and mayhem.
They would tell you He makes up the malls
and the back-alleys, the droplets, and the tiny specks
and spores, and the long, loud parties
that reach deep into the morning and mean
for someone a meeting, for someone
a mating and for someone a crashed
yellow Chevy and a trip to the joint.
They would say He makes up the frowsy freeways
and the dirty everyday, or that regarding a white cloud
in the shape of a thumbless glove, He thinks up breakfast
with bacon that sizzles and curls on itself like a lie though He
may never speak of this even to Himself.
What do the dead know?
They’ve signed on to keep quiet,
but if they could tell you they would,
and if they could they would comfort you.
They’d tell you, Go on and be happy, try it.
You would.

“What the Dead Know” by Mark Kraushaar

“You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. …

On By Christina's WordsIn Quote5 Comments

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.

– Aaron Freeman, “You Want a Physicist to Speak at Your Funeral” (via NPR: Planning Ahead Can Make a Difference in the End)

“Do not assume that he who seeks to comfort you now …

On By Christina's WordsIn Quote

“Do not assume that he who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life may also have much sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, he would never have been able to find these words.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet.