Any Common Desolation
can be enough to make you look up at the yellowed leaves of the apple tree, the few that survived the rains and frost, shot with late afternoon sun. They glow a deep orange-gold against a blue so sheer, a single bird would rip it like silk. You may have to break your heart, but it isnāt nothing to know even one moment alive. The sound of an oar in an oarlock or a ruminant animal tearing grass. The smell of grated ginger. The ruby neon of the liquor store sign. Warm socks. You remember your mother, her precision a ceremony, as she gathered the white cotton, slipped it over your toes, drew up the heel, turned the cuff. A breath can uncoil as you walk across your own muddy yard, the big dipper pouring night down over you, and everything you dread, all you canāt bear, dissolves and, like a needle slipped into your vein ā that sudden rush of the world.
Ellen Bass (b. 1947) Poem-A-Day, Nov. 18, 2016
