Ann Bracken

As National Poetry Month comes to a close, I find myself looking forward to lots of possibilities as I approach a new transition, a place of threshold in my life. Thresholds are both exciting and terrifying, and I know that one way I have always dealt with them is to fill up the new space before I even get there.

Years ago when I my ex-husband and I were building a new house, I was excited to decorate the rooms. Before we sold our old house, I was measuring the new windows, pondering paint colors for the rooms, and selecting fabric for the draperies. Filled with exciting ideas for new window treatments, I selected patterns and sewed curtains, swags, and valences for every room in the house. After we moved, I had all of the boxes unpacked within three days. I was ready for company. And I longed for the next project to fill the void inside.

Luckily, as the years have passed, I have learned to anticipate the shifts that occur. And I know that I need to leave an opening. But just like the anxiety I felt about decorating my house before I moved in, I want to fill the spaces of my life before I arrive. And I know what’s coming up for me is fear of the unknown, fear of not having anything to do.

One way that I manage the looming open space in my life is to read poetry and to journal. I also have decades of experience to fall back on, so I know that new opportunities are always opening up for me. I am rarely without something to do. Still, I have to marshall all of my resources to refrain from filling up my life before I arrive at the next phase.And one of my my trusted resources is poetry.

Here are two poems I have found useful in times of transition. I hope they speak to you as well.

Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
by Dan Albergotti

Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days.
Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires
with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals.
Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices.
Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way
for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review
each of your life’s ten million choices. Endure moments
of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those before you.
Destroy it. Try to be very quiet, and listen for the sound
of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound of your heart.
Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope,
where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all
the things you did and could have done. Remember
treading water in the center of the still night sea, your toes
pointing again and again down, down into the black depths.

The Boatloads.© BOA Editions, Ltd., 2008. Reprinted with permission.

Prospective Immigrants Enter Here
~Adrienne Rich

Either you will
go through this door
or you will not go through.

If you go through
There is always the risk
Of remembering your name.

Things look at you doubly
And you must look back
And let them happen.

If you do not go through
It is possible
to live worthily.

To maintain your attitudes
To hold your position
To die bravely.

But much will blind you,
Much will evade you,
At what cost who knows?

The door itself
Makes no promises
It is only a door.

“What makes a fire burn is the space between the logs.” from “Fire” by Judy Brown

When I teach my Writing for the Environment course every semester at the University of Maryland, I tell my students that I don’t require a textbook. And they are all very relieved to hear that—textbooks are so expensive these days. And then I show them my course website where I have lots of readings, links, and resources for them to use in the course. I make the following analogy.

When you visit a museum, you don’t see everything the museum has in its collection. Museums have curators who select the items for each exhibit and then arrange them so that the visitors have a rich experience. People can linger in rooms where they find an appealing work and then skip the rooms that don’t interest them as much. The collections are limited. You are urged to go deeper into an exhibit, so maybe you see less, but you can appreciate the items you do see. I explain to the students that there is a wealth of information related to resumes, for example, and I have selected resources that I consider the most useful for them to use.

I think our modern lives—so full of social media, online information, email, podcasts, and streaming music call out for us to act as personal curators. Maybe because I am getting older I feel this more keenly than the college students I teach, but I think most of us can benefit from carefully selecting our media choices, our goals, and our activities.

Fire
by Judy Brown

What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.

So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.

When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
together, that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log
lightly from time to time.
A fire
grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way.

POET. AUTHOR. CREATOR OF POSSIBILITIES.

white space

Poetry for Times of Transition

Freedom to Curate Your Life