How It Happens
The sky said I am watching
to see what you
can make out of nothing
I was looking up and I said
I thought you
were supposed to be doing that
the sky said Many
are clinging to that
I am giving you a chance
I was looking up and I said
I am the only chance I have
then the sky did not answer
and here we are
with our names for the days
the vast days that do not listen to us
—
W. S. Merwin
“In Blake, we recover our original state, not by returning to it, but by re-creating it. The act of creation is not producing something out of nothing, but the act of setting free what we already possess.” --Northrup Frye
Photo: Trinidad Head June 30, 2021
This is all I posted for my 75th birthday, curious choice for one of the Big Ones--three-quarters of a century. On the day I was feeling somewhat wounded because no one but my partner contacted me. Pretty much a repeat of my 70th: dashed expectations, along with resolution to work with humility instead of indulging vanity. Still, it seemed a loss for there not to be a celebration on my 75th, when I was healthy enough to enjoy it. I got cards and a call on subsequent days, but that day felt pretty empty. Had my life come to nothing? Nothing is the key word in both the Merwin poem and the Frye quote.
