Friday, April 10, 2009

Meditation on Ruin by Jay Hopler

I've been contemplating this one since I first read it, a few days ago. Things build up-- it's no wonder we get tired sometimes. We carry so much and never, ever put it down. There's a straw out there for all of us camels I think.

Fortunately, the human spirit seems virtually indestructable. We recover, at least partially, at least enough, eventually.


Meditation on Ruin
by Jay Hopler

It's not the lost lover that brings us to ruin, or the barroom brawl,
----------or the con game gone bad, or the beating
Taken in the alleyway. But the lost car keys,
The broken shoelace,
The overcharge at the gas pump
Which we broach without comment — these are the things that
----------eat away at life, these constant vibrations
In the web of the unremarkable.

The death of a father — the death of the mother —
The sudden loss shocks the living flesh alive! But the broken
----------pair of glasses,
The tear in the trousers,
These begin an ache behind the eyes.
And it's this ache to which we will ourselves
Oblivious. We are oblivious. Then, one morning—there's a
crack in the water glass —we wake to find ourselves undone.
"Meditation on Ruin" by Jay Hopler from Green Squall

5 comments:

  1. Hey...I worry about you lately...it's easy to crack when you do too much...I may deal with it more cuz of the fibro...but you're feeling a strain, aren't you? Take it easy on yourself. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm okay Sue:) Just avoiding the straw:) xx

    ReplyDelete
  3. You know, this is pretty much perfect.

    I think it's these little things that all the big cathartic dramas are really for-big issues get vented about, but the small stuff? But it's ok to freak out during a play or a movie or even a really good album. Go go art!

    ReplyDelete
  4. You know-- sudden losses wound us so that the small stuff suddenly seems insurmountable-- that's what I think anyway. Either way the result is the same-- we're undone.

    ReplyDelete