This from Nora Paley:
Today is my mother's birthday although she thought it was the 10th for most of her life. In this photo -a march against the Iraq War -she was feeling very weak and very determined though never stopped thinking about the lives of the grandchildren and the beauty of the world.
Oh how I miss Grace...Just imagine what words of wisdom she would have given us in these particularly terrible times! Blessed be her blessed rebel tongue and whatever words are still circulating....I just posted one of hers today (it was at NPR the
ReplyDeletewriters Almanac)
I was going to write a poem
I made a pie instead it took
about the same amount of time
of course the pie was a final
draft a poem would have had some
distance to go days and weeks and
much crumpled paper
the pie already had a talking
tumbling audience among small
trucks and a fire engine on
the kitchen floor
everybody will like this pie
it will have apples and cranberries
dried apricots in it many friends
will say why in the world did you
make only one
this does not happen with poems
because of unreportable
sadnesses I decided to
settle this morning for a re-
sponsive eatership I do not
want to wait a week a year a
generation for the right
consumer to come along
"The Poet's Occasional Alternative" by Grace Paley from Begin Again.