Day 158 | I Was Always Leaving by Jean Nordhaus

I Was Always Leaving
Jean Nordhaus

I was always leaving, I was

about to get up and go, I was

on my way, not sure where.

Somewhere else. Not here.

Nothing here was good enough.

It would be better there, where I

was going. Not sure how or why.

The dome I cowered under

would be raised, and I would be released

into my true life. I would meet there

the ones I was destined to meet.

They would make an opening for me

among the flutes and boulders,

and I would be taken up. That this

might be a form of death

did not occur to me. I only know

that something held me back,

a doubt, a debt, a face I could not

leave behind. When the door

fell open, I did not go through.

Day 130 | from My God, It’s Full of Stars by Tracy K. Smith

Day 135 | from My God, It’s Full of Stars by Tracy K. Smith

Day 132 | Cartoon Physics, Part 1 by Nick Flynn

Day 16 | Cartoon Physics, Part 1 by Nick Flynn.

Day 104 | from My God, It’s Full of Stars by Tracy K. Smith

Day 135 | from My God, It’s Full of Stars by Tracy K. Smith.

Day 100 | Urban Renewal XVIII by Major Jackson

Urban Renewal XVIII
Major Jackson

How untouchable the girls arm-locked strutting

up the main hall of Central High unopposed

for decades looked. I flattened myself against

the wall, unnerved by their cloudsea of élan,

which pounced upon any timid girl regrettably

in their way, their high-wattage lifting slow motion

like curls of light strands of honey. The swagger

behind their blue-tinted sunglasses and low-rider

jeans hurt boys like me, so vast the worlds

between us, even the slightest whiff of recognition,

an accidental side glance, an unintended tongue-piercing

display of Juicy Fruit chew, was intoxicating

and could wildly cast a chess-playing geek into

a week-long surmise of inner doubts, likelihoods,

and depressions. You might say my whole life led

to celebrating youth and how it snubs and rebuffs.

Back then I learned to avoid what I feared

and to place my third-string hopes on a game-winning

basketball shot, sure it would slow them to a stop,

pan their lip-glossed smiles, blessing me with their cool.

Day 54 | Cartoon Physics, Part 1 by Nick Flynn

Day 16 | Cartoon Physics, Part 1 by Nick Flynn.

Day 91 | Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

Dover Beach
Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Day 72 | My God, It’s Full of Stars (excerpt) by Tracy K. Smith

Day 135 | My God, It’s Full of Stars (excerpt) by Tracy K. Smith.

Day 13 | Cartoon Physics, Part 1 by Nick Flynn

Day 16 | Cartoon Physics, Part 1 by Nick Flynn.

Day 135 | from My God, It’s Full of Stars by Tracy K. Smith

from My God, It’s Full of Stars

Tracy K. Smith

          3.

Perhaps the great error is believing we’re alone,

That the others have come and gone—a momentary blip—

When all along, space might be choc-full of traffic,

Bursting at the seams with energy we neither feel

Nor see, flush against us, living, dying, deciding,

Setting solid feet down on planets everywhere,

Bowing to the great stars that command, pitching stones

At whatever are their moons. They live wondering

If they are the only ones, knowing only the wish to know,

And the great black distance they—we—flicker in.

Maybe the dead know, their eyes widening at last,

Seeing the high beams of a million galaxies flick on

At twilight. Hearing the engines flare, the horns

Not letting up, the frenzy of being. I want to be

One notch below bedlam, like a radio without a dial.

Wide open, so everything floods in at once.

And sealed tight, so nothing escapes. Not even time,

Which should curl in on itself and loop around like smoke.

So that I might be sitting now beside my father

As he raises a lit match to the bowl of his pipe

For the first time in the winter of 1959.