Hello Friends,
Poet Eve L. Ewing writes about today’s poem: “This poem started out as being about the everyday moments that sustain us, born from an interaction with a bus driver. Due, probably, to both the times we live in and my generally apocalyptic character, it also became a poem about the end of the world. From the perspective of Western theology, eschatology often implies a straight line between the beginning of time and our inevitable doom. As an Afrofuturist, I have a less linear view of life and death. I think the links between ancestry and the future are blurry and cyclical. Anyway, we really are stardust.”
This poem was originally published as part of the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series on February 6, 2024. Many of the lines in this poem are long and will wrap if you are reading this on a phone.
Enjoy,
Ællen
Poet Eve L. Ewing writes about today’s poem: “This poem started out as being about the everyday moments that sustain us, born from an interaction with a bus driver. Due, probably, to both the times we live in and my generally apocalyptic character, it also became a poem about the end of the world. From the perspective of Western theology, eschatology often implies a straight line between the beginning of time and our inevitable doom. As an Afrofuturist, I have a less linear view of life and death. I think the links between ancestry and the future are blurry and cyclical. Anyway, we really are stardust.”
This poem was originally published as part of the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series on February 6, 2024. Many of the lines in this poem are long and will wrap if you are reading this on a phone.
Enjoy,
Ællen
eschatology
i’m confident that the absolute dregs of possibility for this society,
the sugary coffee mound at the bottom of this cup,
our last best hope that when our little bit of assigned plasma implodes
it won’t go down as a green mark in the cosmic ledger,
lies in the moment when you say hello to a bus driver
and they say it back—
when someone holds the door open for you
and you do a little jog to meet them where they are—
walking my dog, i used to see this older man
and whenever i said good morning,
he replied ‘GREAT morning’—
in fact, all the creative ways our people greet each other
may be the icing on this flaming trash cake hurtling through the ether.
when the clerk says how are you
and i say ‘i’m blessed and highly favored’
i mean my toes have met sand, and wiggled in it, a lot.
i mean i have laughed until i choked and a friend slapped my back.
i mean my niece wrote me a note: ‘you are so smart + itellajet’
i mean when we do go careening into the sun,
i’ll miss crossing guards ushering the grown folks too, like ducklings
and the lifeguards at the community pool and
men who yelled out the window that they’d fix the dent in my car,
right now! it’d just take a second—
and actually everyone who tried to keep me alive, keep me afloat,
and if not unblemished, suitably repaired.
but i won’t feel too sad about it,
becoming a star
■
i’m confident that the absolute dregs of possibility for this society,
the sugary coffee mound at the bottom of this cup,
our last best hope that when our little bit of assigned plasma implodes
it won’t go down as a green mark in the cosmic ledger,
lies in the moment when you say hello to a bus driver
and they say it back—
when someone holds the door open for you
and you do a little jog to meet them where they are—
walking my dog, i used to see this older man
and whenever i said good morning,
he replied ‘GREAT morning’—
in fact, all the creative ways our people greet each other
may be the icing on this flaming trash cake hurtling through the ether.
when the clerk says how are you
and i say ‘i’m blessed and highly favored’
i mean my toes have met sand, and wiggled in it, a lot.
i mean i have laughed until i choked and a friend slapped my back.
i mean my niece wrote me a note: ‘you are so smart + itellajet’
i mean when we do go careening into the sun,
i’ll miss crossing guards ushering the grown folks too, like ducklings
and the lifeguards at the community pool and
men who yelled out the window that they’d fix the dent in my car,
right now! it’d just take a second—
and actually everyone who tried to keep me alive, keep me afloat,
and if not unblemished, suitably repaired.
but i won’t feel too sad about it,
becoming a star
■