I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,

I see my father strolling out

under the ochre sandstone arch, the

red tiles glinting like bent

plates of blood behind his head, I

see my mother with a few light books at her hip

standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks with the

wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its

sword-tips black in the May air,

they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,

they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are

innocent, they would never hurt anybody.

I want to go up to them and say Stop,

don't do it--she's the wrong woman,

he's the wrong man, you are going to do things

you cannot imagine you would ever do,

you are going to do bad things to children,

you are going to suffer in ways you've never heard of,

you are going to want to die. I want to go

up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,

her hungry pretty blank face turning to me,

her pitiful beautiful untouched body,

his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me,

his pitiful beautiful untouched body,

but I don't do it. I want to live. I

take them up like the male and female

paper dolls and bang them together

at the hips like chips of flint as if to

strike sparks from them, I say

Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

--Sharon Olds

I woke up this morning with this poem running through my head and it made me cry before I'd even pushed the sheets back. I've read this poem so many times, first read it when I was only 16 but, until this morning, I never fully understood exactly what she was saying. I mean it's obvious what she's saying but I guess I never truly felt it.

So many good things have come from the losses I've experienced in my life and every now and then I have to ask myself, Would I give it all up? Would I take them back? Sharon Olds writes as though she has a choice. Sometimes I feel like I do too.
10:30:48 AM     comment []

Okay, so I never thought I would get political on this blog but here goes anyway.

Tonight I'm working at a fancy-schmancy Hollywood Hills fundraiser for Howard Dean and I'm only working it so that I can see the man. I'm not even getting paid.

I'm pretty excited about it. I've never really paid attention to politics and I've never even voted but enough is enough. I can't take any more Bush and this Dean is pretty interesting.

Mr. Dean even has a blog.

Alright. That's all I'm going to say, lest I ruin my reputation as poignant.
10:23:40 AM     comment []