When Giving Is All We Have
~ Alberto Ríos

One river gives
Its journey to the next.

We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:

Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.

You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me

What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made

Something greater from the difference.

Sonnet Isolate
~ Anne Carson

“I force myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.” —Marcel Duchamp

A sonnet is a rectangle upon the page.
Your eye enjoys it in a ratio of eight to five.
Let’s say you’re an urgent man in an urgent language
construing the millions of shadows that keep you alive.
If only it were water or innocent or a hawk from a handsaw,
if only you were Adonis or Marcel Duchamp
settling in to your half hour of sex or chess, not this raw
block cut out of the fog of meaning, still damp. But no,

you are alone. Whatever idea here rises from its knees
to turn and face you quicker than a kiss
or a hyphen or the very first moment you felt the breeze
of being a creature who will die—one day, not this—
will ask of you most of your cunning and a deep blue release like a sigh
while using only two pronouns, I and not-I.

Think of the various parts of your life.  Which parts are getting too much attention? Which parts aren’t receiving enough attention? Are you spending enough time on the things that really matter, or are you busying yourself with trivia?

The problem with trivial matters is that they often *seem* urgent, or are attractive distractions.

While some days are filled with urgent matters which overwhelm the most carefully constructed agenda, most of the items we treat as urgent probably aren’t that time-sensitive.  We allow events, other people, and our own confusion to overwhelm us with artificial urgency, instead of stepping back and assessing the situation to decide for ourselves if the fate of civilization actually rests on whether the task is accomplished. Despite what people think, the world will not end if their request is not fulfilled in the next five minutes.

Attractive distractions abound: watching the world go by, watching TV, taking Facebook quizzes. While it’s important to have down time and to do fun things to refresh ourselves, it’s far too easy to lose multiple hours—day after day—to unproductive distractions.

How do you spend your time?  No, really.  What do you do all day?  What do you have to show for each 24 hours the universe grants to you?

We all have days where the best laid plans go awry, despite our best efforts to stay on track —the train is late, the car blows a tire, the colleague has a family emergency and leaves you to finish the presentation by yourself, the child gets sick and you have to leave work in the middle of the day to pick them up from school—any number of things can—and do—happen. But that’s not reality most days (thank the Gods).

Most of the time we lose is time we’re not aware of losing. We choose to cruise Wikipedia for hours, instead of doing our own writing. We opt to take Facebook quizzes rather than call a friend for a real conversation.  We automatically plop on the couch to watch television because we’re “too tired” to do anything meaningful.

Some days are dreadful, and curling up with a beverage of choice and staring out the window is the exact right thing to do. In taking time to be still and be quiet, we release the tension and aggravation, returning to our center, so that we can appreciate the rest of the day that remains.

We all need down time, we all need time to have fun. Not every hour is billable. Only you know what is truly important to you. I encourage you to look honestly at what you do with your time, and make choices that are better for your mental and emotional health, and better for your life and your soul.

Clock

He Visits My Town Once a Year
~ Amir Khusrow

He visits my town once a year.

He fills my mouth with kisses and nectar.

I spend all my money on him.

Who, girl, your man?

No, a mango.

(Image: Woman with a Mango by Paul Gauguin)

Woman with a Mango – Paul Gauguin

Images
~ Valery Larbaud
Translated from the French by William Jay Smith

1
One day in a popular quarter of Kharkov,
(O that southern Russia where all the women
With white-shawled heads look so like Madonnas!)
I saw a young woman returning from the fountain,
Bearing, Russian-style, as Roman women did in the time of Ovid,
Two pails suspended from the ends of a wooden
Yoke balanced on neck and shoulders.
And I saw a child in rags approach and speak to her.
Then, bending her body lovingly to the right,
She moved so the pail of pure water touched the cobblestone
Level with the lips of the child who had kneeled to drink.

2
One morning, in Rotterdam, on Boompjes quai
(It was September 18, 1900, around eight o’clock),
I observed two young ladies on their way to work;
Opposite one of the great iron bridges, they said farewell,
Their paths diverging.
Tenderly they embraced; their trembling hands
Wanted, but did not want, to part; their mouths
Withdrew sadly and came together again soon again
While they gazed fixedly into each other’s eyes . . .
They stood thus for a long moment side by side,
Straight and still amid the busy throng,
While the tugboats rumbled by on the river,
And the whistling trains maneuvered on the iron bridges.

3
Between Cordova and Seville
Is a little station where the South Express,
For no apparent reason, always stops.
In vain the traveler looks for a village
Beyond the station asleep under the eucalyptus:
He sees but the Andalusian countryside: green and golden.
But across the way, on the other side of the track,
Is a hut made of black boughs and clay.
From which, at the sound of the train, ragged children swarm forth,
The eldest sister, leading them, comes forward on the platform
And, smiling, without uttering word,
Dances for pennies.
Her feet in the heavy dust look black;
Her dark, filthy face is devoid of beauty;
She dances, and through the large holes of her ash-gray skirt,
One can see the the agitation of her thin, naked thighs,
And the roll of her little yellow belly;
At the sight of which a few gentlemen,
Amid an aroma of cigars, chuckle obscenely in the dining car.

Post-scriptum
O Lord will it never be possible for me
To know the sweet woman, there in southern Russia,
And those two young friends in Rotterdam,
And the young Andalusian beggar
And join with them
In an indissoluble friendship?
(Alas, they will not read these poems,
They will know neither my name, nor the feeling in my heart;
And yet they exist; they live now).
Will it never be possible for me to experience the great joy
Of knowing them?
For some strange reason, Lord, I feel that with those four
I should conquer a whole world!