today is "poem in your pocket" day--the academy of american poets is trying to spread the poetic love by offering a little template, with 25 selections that can be printed out for folks to either carry around for themselves, or share. of these, i like lost by sara teasdale...
there is a poem that i carry around, it was sent to me by my aunt several years ago. she knows too well my dreamy, broody side and during a particularly difficult period, i received in the mail a handwritten note from her, on hotel stationery:
be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.
do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.
and the point is to live everything.
live the questions now. perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it live along some distant days into the answers.
she came across that passage in "a year by the sea" by joan anderson, which she'd been reading during her vacation. it was written by rainer maria rilke ('letters to a young poet").
i read it from time to time, encouraged by the words, still amazed by the timeliness and thoughtfulness of her sending it. but that is just how she is...
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i've linked to todd hido's work before--he is a newly discovered favorite photographer of mine, and i really love the shots through a wet, dirty windshield in "a road divided."
here is david m. roth's brief review of his recent show at the stephen wirtz gallery and many more shots from "a road divided" here, via americansuburbx.com.
enjoy.
