Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!
For this session we read a poem “Destruction” by Joanne Kyger from A Book of Luminous Things, Czeslaw Milosz, Editor, posted below.
Our prompt was: “Write about going through it.”
Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.
Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if you’re able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!
Please join us for our next session Monday February 5th at 6pm EST, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.
"Destruction" by Joanne Kyger from A Book of Luminous Things, Czeslaw Milosz, Editor
First of all do you remember the way a bear goes through
a cabin when nobody is home? He goes through
the front door. I mean he really goes through it. Then
he takes the cupboard off the wall and eats a can of lard.
He eats all the apples, limes, dates, bottled decaffeinated
coffee, and 35 pounds of granola. The asparagus soup cans
fall to the floor. Yum! He chomps up Norwegian crackers
stashed for the winter. And the bouillon, salt, pepper,
paprika, garlic, onions, potatoes.
He rips the Green Tara
poster from the wall. Tries the Coleman Mustard. Spills
the ink, tracks in the flour. Goes up stairs and takes
a shit. Rips open the water bed, eats the incense and
drinks the perfume. Knocks over the Japanese tansu
and the Persian miniature of a man on horseback watching
a woman bathing.
Knocks Shelter, Whole Earth Catalouge,
Planet Drum, Northern Mists, Truck Tracks, and
Women’s Sports into the oozing water bed mess.
He goes
down stairs and out the back wall. He keeps on going
for a long way and finds a good cave to sleep it all off.
Luckily he ate the whole medicine cabinet, including stash
of LSD, Peyote, Psilocybin, Amanita, Benzedrine, Valium
and aspirin.
Credit: Milosz, Czeslaw, ed. A Book of Luminous Things (1997). Harcourt, Brace & Company.
