questions

 

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

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

Comments

[Richard Jeffrey Newman]

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.