Sunday, January 07, 2007
10:23 PM
Where Do I Begin
For the first time in a long time, I'm quietly happy. Despite the bandaged thumb, the sniffles, the dwindling resources, the homesickness, the fact that winter term classes start this Tuesday, and the frustrating knowledge that the fact I'm not Canadian closes me off to scholarships and literary contests and other opportunities available to my peers. Today I received so much: Sunday morning backrubs, freshly brewed coffee and the New York Times and the thought of waffles, more hugs than I'd gotten in a month, the return of a friend who's more like a sister now, turones de kasoy, books I'd requested from my shelves back home, notes and little gifts from dear friends I miss, and this reemerging capacity for tenderness. Despite everything, I'm still pretty lucky. I just need to get through this year and this grad school ordeal I've gotten myself into with more resolve and groundedness.
* * *
Museum
by Robert Hass
On the morning of the Kathe Kollwitz exhibit, a young man and woman come into the museum restaurant. She is carrying a baby; he carries the air-freight edition of the Sunday New York Times. She sits in a high-backed wicker chair, cradling the infant in her arms. He fills a tray with fresh fruit, rolls, and coffee in white cups and brings it to the table. His hair is tousled, her eyes are puffy. They look like they were thrown down into sleep and then yanked out if it like divers coming up for air. He holds the baby. She drinks coffee, scans the front page, butters a roll and eats it in their little corner in the sun. After a while, she holds the baby. He reads the Book Review and eats some fruit. Then he holds the baby while she finds the section of the paper she wants and eats fruit and smokes. They’ve hardly exchanged a look. Meanwhile, I have fallen in love with this equitable arrangement, and with the baby who cooperates by sleeping. All around then are faces Kathe Kollwitz carved in wood of people with no talent or capacity for suffering who are suffering the numbest kinds of pain: hunger, helpless terror. But this young couple is reading the Sunday paper in the sun, the baby is sleeping, the green has begun to emerge from the rind of the cantaloupe, and everything seems possible.
Labels: life, love, poetry
