From Scott:
In her wonderful poem, “The Summer Day,” Mary Oliver says
“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention . . .
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done? . . . .
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
When I first read that poem, I took her imperative to pay attention to heart, and have held onto it ever since. In 40+ years of writing I have used it to keep me focused, to remind me what it is I am supposed to be doing not just as a writer but as a grateful citizen of the universe. And in 40+ years of teaching I have used it as one of my favorite prompts, in fact, as a teachable habit I try to instill in my students, and I’ve seen the results of that habit in the more than 25 books and thousands of poems my students have published. My newest book, “The Song Is Why We Sing,” available from Redhawk Publishing (redhawkpublishing.com) is all about the practice of poetry and the habit of paying attention. The two poems included here, “Existential Knot” and “Distractions,” are examples of the results and reminders of the importance of paying attention.
Existential Knot
I picked up a knot from the ground today,
not an important knot,
not of significant size,
not of any significance really,
at least not initially,
but then I realized if not for the knot
I likely would not have noticed it at all.
In fact, the knot would have just been
a string, not of any special size,
not of any noticeable color,
not anything special about it at all,
but the fact that it was tied into a knot
made it not exactly like every other
unknotted expanse I’d seen.
Of course, I thought about unknotting the knot
but ultimately decided not to,
as the knottiness was exactly what made it
exactly what it was and continues to be,
a knot not like any other,
insured by its knottiness
not be left unnoticed.
Distractions
My friend tells me she gets distracted
by clouds. As one who is frequently accused
of being distracted by birds, I don’t think clouds
are such a bad thing to pay attention to.
My 10-month-old grandson is distracted by screens,
cellphones, televisions, perhaps because
it’s what distracts us from him, or because
he already understands it’s the one thing we deny him.
This morning as I returned from taking
10 minutes (apparently too long) to take out
the trash because I stopped to pull the crabgrass
coming up through cracks in the driveway,
my wife told me the reason we struggle
to get everything done is that I’m too often
distracted by weeds . . . and then she threw in
for argument’s sake . . . and poetry.
But what makes something a distraction?
Is it as simple as what we attend to
when others want us attending to
something else or maybe to them?
Literally it’s that which drags apart,
draws away, impedes traction,
towards what? A goal, duty, responsibility?
But aren’t some distractions worth more
than what they distract us from?
And some distractions better than others?
Surely poetry and clouds and birds
are better than bright shiny objects,
social media, or squirrels. The world
is simply full of things worthy of distraction,
things worth writing about. Our job
is to notice them, and then start writing.
