What words can do

The comfort of poetry

I have loved poetry since I was a little girl. Some of you may know I entered a poetry contest at nine years old, and fully expected to win. I imagined the prize would be about a million dollars and I was going to use the money to buy my Dad a Cadillac. I did not win, and I was devastated. Never mind, I continued to love poetry, and these days have come to rely on it on ways I had not anticipated. I use it now not only for inspiration but for comfort. I want to share with you the last stanza of a poem I read today, and I think you’ll see what I mean. It comes from the poem “Insomnia” in Ellen Bass’s excellent collection MULES OF LOVE:

So here’s a prayer

for the wakeful, the souls who can’t rest

As you lie with eyes

open or closed, may something

comfort you—a mockingbird, a breeze, the smell

of crushed mint, Chopin’s Nocturnes,

your child’s birth, a kiss,

or even me—in my chilly kitchen

with my coat over my nightgown—thinking of you.

—Ellen Bass

Okay, there you go. There’s a gift at your doorstep.

In other news, this is my first offering at Substack, which is new to me, and I hope I can figure out how to use it in all the ways I can. In the meantime, if this message finds you, well, Hello!