Last night we hosted a Nutcracker preview event at work, inviting donors, their families, and press into our space for photo opportunities with child cast members, an appearance of Mother Ginger, and a performance by the Company. At the beginning of the day it was the very last thing I could fathom doing, but setting up and decorating were welcome distractions. When the Company took the stage for the snow scene, it was just beautiful, even hopeful. It reminded me of the role the arts can play in times like these. How they can restore and rejuvenate, how they can paint a picture or create a scene or play a sound that allows us to experience joy or beauty or inspiration amidst everything else. It's not necessarily about forgetting what's happening in your crazy world but being given a vehicle that allows you to set it aside, replacing it with something more. Poetry is like that for me too. It may not be as visually compelling as ballet but I find it helpful. We're certainly not going to effect dramatic political change through poetry (maybe I shouldn't be so dismissive of that possibility...) but maybe just maybe a poem a day can keep the Trump nightmares at bay.
David Budbill
When I work outdoors all day, every day, as I do now, in the fall,
getting ready for winter, tearing up the garden, digging potatoes,
gathering the squash, cutting firewood, making kindling, repairing
bridges over the brook, clearing trails in the woods, doing the last of
the fall mowing, pruning apple trees, taking down the screens,
putting up the storm windows, banking the house--all these things,
as preparation for the coming cold...
when I am every day all day all body and no mind, when I am
physically, wholly and completely, in this world with the birds,
the deer, the sky, the wind, the trees...
when day after day I think of nothing but what the next chore is,
when I go from clearing woods roads, to sharpening a chain saw,
to changing the oil in a mower, to stacking wood, when I am
all body and no mind...
when I am only here and now and nowhere else--then, and only
then, do I see the crippling power of mind, the curse of thought,
and I pause and wonder why I so seldom find
this shining moment in the now.
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