When I was in the coup, in turkey. Stuck in the airport for days with two fractured feet. i sat on a metal gurney and thought “i will die here”. US Government wouldn’t let me though....they arranged for Americans for safe passage to another country and then after, to US.
I needed this, just now. My near death was near death by a thousand cuts for most of my life. Your poem offers me a way, a survivor, to really live the rest of my life. Can't thank you enough.
Ironically, as I write this, I'm listening to a song on KBCS.fm with a line "I'm a survivor anyhow".
was thinking just this morning about the dying friends and acquaintances, how much of yourself goes with them ... as they move into another realm. No wonder people believe in ghosts.
Yes, "this trembling world" indeed! You'll get many who offer their near-death accounts, I'd guess. Mine has to do with totaling the family car, a '56 Chevy, when I was 16. OR was it that array of imaginary deaths in combat when I was maybe 10 or 11? Holding my breath & trying hard to look dead, a dribble of spit leaking from the corner of my mouth to suggest blood . . .
On June 10, 1999, I believed I was looking at imminent death when I walked out to my small porch and witnessed a roaring 30,000 foot high smoke plume that filled my horizontal field of vision with roiling dark grey smoke and flames. I felt oddly calm because there seemed no way to escape something that vast and powerful and deadly. The gasoline from the ruptured Olympic pipeline had exploded, creating what looked like a nuclear bomb mushroom cloud. Many of us here in Bellingham were close to death that day, in close proximity to Whatcom Creek where two 10-year-olds and an 18-year-old died as a result of the fireball that raced down the creek for a mile and a half.
I imagine those three, wherever they are now, telling a story that both comforts and hurts.
I remember seeing the news about that horrific day. Condolences to you and to everybody who lost so much. I think of those boys playing in the water like kids do and I don't even know what to write. I have no words that can describe the grief their friends and family suffer through.
Such a stunning poem--I love "trembling world." The closest I've come to dying was when a horse reared up and threw me, and I landed on my back so hard, I had no air left in my lungs and I thought my back was broken. Miraculously, though, the horse didn't trample me and I managed to revive myself and wobble home--though I always wondered if something inside was irrevocably changed.
When I was in the coup, in turkey. Stuck in the airport for days with two fractured feet. i sat on a metal gurney and thought “i will die here”. US Government wouldn’t let me though....they arranged for Americans for safe passage to another country and then after, to US.
I needed this, just now. My near death was near death by a thousand cuts for most of my life. Your poem offers me a way, a survivor, to really live the rest of my life. Can't thank you enough.
Ironically, as I write this, I'm listening to a song on KBCS.fm with a line "I'm a survivor anyhow".
I have been close to death, the memory has always stayed near. Amazing poem, thank you.
Thanks for reminding us how tenuous life really is, and how we live on in our relationships.
Thanks for the restack.
was thinking just this morning about the dying friends and acquaintances, how much of yourself goes with them ... as they move into another realm. No wonder people believe in ghosts.
All the DNA that's ever existed still exists. So, in that sense, everything keeps going.
we just carry it around for a while....
Yes, "this trembling world" indeed! You'll get many who offer their near-death accounts, I'd guess. Mine has to do with totaling the family car, a '56 Chevy, when I was 16. OR was it that array of imaginary deaths in combat when I was maybe 10 or 11? Holding my breath & trying hard to look dead, a dribble of spit leaking from the corner of my mouth to suggest blood . . .
Yeah, isn't it fascinating how kids love to play dead?
On June 10, 1999, I believed I was looking at imminent death when I walked out to my small porch and witnessed a roaring 30,000 foot high smoke plume that filled my horizontal field of vision with roiling dark grey smoke and flames. I felt oddly calm because there seemed no way to escape something that vast and powerful and deadly. The gasoline from the ruptured Olympic pipeline had exploded, creating what looked like a nuclear bomb mushroom cloud. Many of us here in Bellingham were close to death that day, in close proximity to Whatcom Creek where two 10-year-olds and an 18-year-old died as a result of the fireball that raced down the creek for a mile and a half.
I imagine those three, wherever they are now, telling a story that both comforts and hurts.
I remember seeing the news about that horrific day. Condolences to you and to everybody who lost so much. I think of those boys playing in the water like kids do and I don't even know what to write. I have no words that can describe the grief their friends and family suffer through.
Love the word irreal.
Thanks, Travis.
. . .poets in the gulag. ummh. Feel like many of us are waking up from a coma. Maybe a pen is our voice. Thank you Sherman.
Thank you.
Beautiful—great stories hardly ever leave out the pain.
Thank you, Amy.
Such a stunning poem--I love "trembling world." The closest I've come to dying was when a horse reared up and threw me, and I landed on my back so hard, I had no air left in my lungs and I thought my back was broken. Miraculously, though, the horse didn't trample me and I managed to revive myself and wobble home--though I always wondered if something inside was irrevocably changed.
That is terrifying. Have you ridden since?
Oh yes, many times! It's like writing and rejection: You have to get back on the horse!
I'm compiling an inventory of all the close calls I've had and thinking about writing them up in a poem called, "My Nine Lives."
There you go!
Did it. Thanks for the prompt!
"[T}he story that comforts and hurts" -- strikes me as the writer's mantra. A beautifully realized piece by my favorite author, dear Sherman.
Thank you, Mary.
You might find the new PBS special on the brain interesting, considering some of the ideas in this piece: Your Brain.
I will check it out.
Just wow. Lots of thoughts on this. thank you.
Thanks.