Hello Peeps. Wally here. It rained all night tapping on the hood of Dad’s car. And I freaked when I found dad still in bed with me at 7:30 am.
“You sick Dad? I hope not.”
“No Wally … just Retired.”
I don’t like rain at all but love Retirement Dad.
Happy Monday!
Inspired by:
Don’t run any more. Quiet. How softly it rains On the roofs of the city. How perfect All things are. Now, for the two of you Waking up in a royal bed by a garret window.
— Czesław Miłosz, from “After Paradise” in “New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001 (Ecco, 2001)
Poet Andrea Gibson died on July 14, 2025 at the age of 49 from Ovarian cancer. Here’s some excerpts from an essay written by her friend and fellow poet Amber Tamblyn from a NY Times article titled: “A Poet Who Advocated Radical Tenderness“.
“Andrea had a unique ability to offer their readers and listeners a way of living, to show us how much we need tenderness, and how to be tender as a radical act. One of the last poems they wrote, “Love Letter From the Afterlife,” was written…for a fractured world. It asks us to do what might feel impossible right now: Soften toward, not away from, one another, even at such a heightened time of vitriol and hate. It was written by a poet who lived their brief life with a consciousness of something bigger than themselves — a collective belief, whether we are aware of it or not, that all of us long to feel less alone. […]
In a poem titled, “How The Worst Day of My Life Became the Best,” Andrea wrote:
When I realized the storm was inevitable, I made it my medicine.
Took two snowflakes on the tongue in the morning, two snowflakes on the tongue by noon.
There were no side effects. Only sound effects. Reverb added to my lifespan, an echo that asked—
What part of your life’s record is skipping? What wound is on repeat? Have you done everything you can to break out of that groove?
[…} In 2023, a video Andrea made on lessons they learned after learning their cancer was now incurable, went viral. On a drive, they said, they had done the bravest thing they had ever done. “I picked my head up and I loved the world that I knew wouldn’t always be mine.” They went on, “I think many of us are doing it almost all the time; we are not allowing ourselves joy or love or peace because we are afraid to lose it. Don’t be so afraid of losing life that you forget to live it.” […]
I believe with perfect faith that at this very moment millions of human beings are standing at crossroads and intersections, in jungles and deserts, showing each other where to turn, what the right way is, which direction. They explain exactly where to go, what is the quickest way to get there, when to stop and ask again. There, over there. The second turnoff, not the first, and from there left or right, near the white house, by the oak tree. They explain with excited voices, with a wave of the hand and a nod of the head: There, over there, not that there, the other there, as in some ancient rite. This too is a new religion. I believe with perfect faith, that at this very moment.
— Yehuda Amichai, from “I Wasn’t One of the Six Million: And What Is My Life Span? Open Closed Open” in “Open Closed Open: Poems.” Translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld. (Harcourt, 2000)
Last month, the Mary Oliver estate launched a merch store — now, for just $35, you can wear a cropped tee that reminds you to give in to joy. […]
Oliver’s work offered sanctuary from the marketplace, not entry into it. She didn’t tweet or posture. She walked and watched. She noticed things and made noticing feel sacred. She wrote about geese and rivers and blackberries — not as metaphors to be performed, but as wonders to be witnessed. Her poems were quiet refusals. She left the party early, wandered into the woods, knelt in the grass.
Now her words are a sort of spiritual branding perfect for selfies. […]
I want to believe not everything has to be for sale. A poem can be a product, yes. But it can also be a prayer, a resistance, a small doorway back to something unsellable, something quiet and alive. Maybe the question isn’t what we buy or wear, but what we still believe. We don’t need to carry Oliver’s words into the world. We just need to sit still long enough that they carry us.
Her most famous question — What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? — isn’t asking what you’ll post, or wear, or monetize. It’s asking what you’ll notice. What you’ll love without needing to be seen loving it.
We don’t need to wear the poem; we need to live it.
— Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi, “A Star,” tr. Hafiz Kheir with Mark Ford
Notes:
Twilight to Sunrise. Time Lapse Video. 5:00 am to 6:50 am, 110 minutes in 28 seconds. 33° F. April 10, 2025. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT
Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
