Calm-Arriving to a Wanting Safe World
At the risk of invoking a platitude, I often turn to my students for wisdom. Over the past few weeks, many of my students have been responding to the current situation in their poems. Their resilience, insight, and courage never fail to leaven my own ability to think through nearly unthinkable times. And maybe that’s the problem: I’m thinking when, as Adam Wolfond puts it, I should be dancing. Today he wrote: “How I mostly think about this time is always fearful. I am always wondering when I am calm-arriving to a wanting safe world.” In the two poems that follow, I think you will find language you didn’t know you were looking for, language that embodies the complexity and opportunity of this moment.
Attempting to dance it differently,
Chris