Wondering

Sue made this photograph of me, sitting on the couch in her house, facing her, wondering, as I often do, how to proceed. The photographs I have been making this month are ones I cannot post, for legal reasons. The activities I’ve been absorbed in are ones I cannot describe, as we live in a litigious culture. I ask myself what I can say. How can I speak of my own inner and outer experience, and say nothing about the person I’m engaged with? 

A sonnet, an ode, a ballad, a roundel--all have their rules, and poets choose to accept those rules for the challenge of it. I can choose to view this situation as a new set of rules that may lead me somewhere I have never traveled. 

I can say that my life has been profoundly changed, that I have not been to my apartment in weeks, that I am doing practical things that all adult human beings understand: feeding, dressing, bathing, doing dishes, cleaning house, speaking to people on the phone and by email, dealing with issues financial, medical, and legal; washing dishes, carrying out the garbage, doing laundry, administering medication, laying in groceries and cooking them. I can say that, and it is true, but it’s superficial.

I can say that I am involved in deep giving and deep receiving, in communion, in the holiness of the heart’s affections and the truth of imagination, which is all Keats knew of beauty. I can say that laughter happens frequently, that the indignity of the human body is hilarious, that the notion that we are in control of our lives is worthy of the comedy our Greek predecessors made of it. I can say that the opportunity to express one’s love through acts of practical devotion is a great privilege, and that it deepens the connection one may feel to another human being. 

I can say that in a world that is burning, exploding, melting, and quaking, a world in which people continue to torment each other and make war on each other, to dominate and frighten, it is a great pleasure to be absorbed in the work of being kind, tender, and useful to another human being. I will start with that and see what else I may be able to say.