Stepping out of a bad phase in life is scary. The price for seeing is not that you get any relief, but that you are burdened with the question of where to go now and how to do it.
I feel the dawn in that final line. That ineffable "yearning" – for what? To cling back to the known, or on into the rippling mystery. It also brings to mind "What you called that yearning" from Marie Howe's poem, What The Living Do. https://poets.org/poem/what-living-do. And also this performance from Craig Carnelia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9HHv5mklfo
While editing the poem, I removed a verse about the morning ending in yawning, which parallels the mourning that leads to yearning.
You yawn to fill your body with air and signal the start of the day after the night. Mourning works the same way: to move past it, you must yearn for something that gives you the energy. As you mentioned, some people get stuck in the habit of returning because there is nowhere to go. This is the topic I wanted to touch on and discuss within the poem.
People are often unfairly judged for this behavior when, really, for them, it does not feel like a choice. People repeatedly argue about personal responsibility. I would argue that it is our responsibility as social animals to provide a society that supports people moving up in life, so going down isn't the obvious path for many.
I took out that verse because the poem already evokes the morning, and the words can easily mix when spoken. If someone did not pronounce them perfectly, it can be unclear if they said morning, mourning, yawning, or yearning.
Both meanings make sense, so I hid them in the poem in the same way that speaking the words might conceal them. In general, I do not like it when poetry is too on the nose, so I'd like to err on the side of being too vague.
"I would argue that it is our responsibility as social animals to provide a society that supports people moving up in life, so going down isn't the obvious path for many." I hear that.
I've got a challenge for you – which you don't have to accept.
Write a poem called "social animals" drawing on the more-than-human world that explores these themes as a starting point. Pay attention to metaphorical and spatial constructions around verticality, and find alternatives to the standard vision: "vertical ascension = success/transcendence."
I feel the dawn in that final line. That ineffable "yearning" – for what? To cling back to the known, or on into the rippling mystery. It also brings to mind "What you called that yearning" from Marie Howe's poem, What The Living Do. https://poets.org/poem/what-living-do. And also this performance from Craig Carnelia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9HHv5mklfo
While editing the poem, I removed a verse about the morning ending in yawning, which parallels the mourning that leads to yearning.
You yawn to fill your body with air and signal the start of the day after the night. Mourning works the same way: to move past it, you must yearn for something that gives you the energy. As you mentioned, some people get stuck in the habit of returning because there is nowhere to go. This is the topic I wanted to touch on and discuss within the poem.
People are often unfairly judged for this behavior when, really, for them, it does not feel like a choice. People repeatedly argue about personal responsibility. I would argue that it is our responsibility as social animals to provide a society that supports people moving up in life, so going down isn't the obvious path for many.
I took out that verse because the poem already evokes the morning, and the words can easily mix when spoken. If someone did not pronounce them perfectly, it can be unclear if they said morning, mourning, yawning, or yearning.
Both meanings make sense, so I hid them in the poem in the same way that speaking the words might conceal them. In general, I do not like it when poetry is too on the nose, so I'd like to err on the side of being too vague.
"I would argue that it is our responsibility as social animals to provide a society that supports people moving up in life, so going down isn't the obvious path for many." I hear that.
I've got a challenge for you – which you don't have to accept.
Write a poem called "social animals" drawing on the more-than-human world that explores these themes as a starting point. Pay attention to metaphorical and spatial constructions around verticality, and find alternatives to the standard vision: "vertical ascension = success/transcendence."
There's something so powerful about this poem. Glad to have started my morning off reading it!
Thank you for the kind words!
this is so good ✨