I think any conversion is a kind of mystery. We’re different now. But we’re not. But we are. That’s one of the reasons I keep this quote from Joan Didion: “I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.”
–
Night Song
My son cries and I stumble
over to pick him up
and he hangs on my neck,
dependent, and love
twists deep inside me,
the good knife
working at the pointless
tangle of old roots and fear,
the baffled heart prized
open by small
and normal degrees …
How easily
we waste our lives,
lavishly, with so little
thought, and then
such tiny
socks.
