It's Hard to Keep a Clean Shirt Clean

 "It's Hard to Keep a Clean Shirt Clean"

Poem for Sriram Shamasunder
And All of Poetry for the People 

It’s a sunlit morning
with jasmine blooming
easily
and a drove of robin redbreasts
diving into the ivy covering
what used to be
a backyard fence
or doves shoving aside
the birch tree leaves
when
a young man walks among
the flowers
to my doorway
where he knocks
then stands still
brilliant in a clean white shirt

He lifts a soft fist
to that door
and knocks again

He’s come to say this
was or that
was
not
and what’s
anyone of us to do
about what’s done
what’s past
but prickling salt to sting
our eyes

What’s anyone of us to do
about what’s done

And 7-month-old Bingo
puppy leaps
and hits
that clean white shirt
with muddy paw
prints here
and here and there

And what’s anyone of us to do
about what’s done
I say I’ll wash the shirt
no problem
two times through
the delicate blue cycle
of an old machine
the shirt spins in the soapy
suds and spins in rinse
and spins
and spins out dry 
not clean

still marked by accidents
by energy of whatever serious or trifling cause
the shirt stays dirty
from that puppy’s paws

I take that fine white shirt
from India
the threads as soft as baby
fingers weaving them
together
and I wash that shirt
between
between the knuckles of my own
two hands
I scrub and rub that shirt
to take the dirty
markings
out

At the pocket
and around the shoulder seam
and on both sleeves
the dirt the paw
prints tantalize my soap
my water my sweat
equity
invested in the restoration
of a clean white shirt

And on the eleventh try
I see no more
no anything unfortunate
no dirt

I hold the limp fine
cloth
between the faucet stream
of water as transparent
as a wish the moon stayed out
all day

How small it has become!
That clean white shirt!
How delicate!
How slight!
How like a soft fist knocking on my door!
And now I hang the shirt
to dry
as slowly as it needs
the air
to work its way
with everything

It’s clean.
A clean white shirt
nobody wanted to spoil
or soil
that shirt
much cleaner now but also
not the same
as the first before that shirt
got hit got hurt
not perfect
anymore
just beautiful

a clean white shirt

It’s hard to keep a clean shirt clean.

 - by June Jordan, from Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan (2005)

"I Like Beer"

Julia Child and Jacques Pépin tear it up and make some sammies on Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home. This whole video is a gem, but the true highlight comes near the end, at 3:36.

Enjoy.

Lize

- "Lize" by Smog, from The Doctor Came at Dawn (1996)

Halftime

Bright little mishaps

Notes on Longing

"Notes on Longing"

It smells of after-rain tonight.
Duck bones, a wounded egg on rice.
On the corner, there is a shop
that makes keys, keys that open
human doors, doors that lead
to rooms that hold families
of four or seven who sit at a table.
There is a mother who brings
sizzling flounder on a wide platter
for the family whose ordinary
mouths have been made to sing.

- by Tina Chang, from Half-Lit Houses (2004)

Old Time Lovin'

I can't believe it took me 23 years to find and appreciate this album. If you've got forty minutes to listen, I urge you to check out Al Green's Let's Stay Together in its entirety.

I could write a whole essay about my experience of music, and how few artists of color I've actively sought out in my life. And I hope I will—in a distracted frenzy, I just abandoned this post for 30 minutes to write a pitch on that very topic.

First things first, though: if you do nothing else today, spend three minutes with this song.

-"Old Time Lovin'" by Al Green, from Let's Stay Together (1972)

The Value of Poetry

Some scrambled thoughts before an appointment:

Our culture has always impressed upon me the value of hard work. As a self-proclaimed "poet," I hold no illusions about the imposed financial value of my work. I will never pay my bills writing poetry, and I am okay with that. I remind myself that many writers had trying day jobs: Maya Angelou was a cable car conductor. John Clare was a thresher. Junot Díaz worked in a steel mill.

As a young professional, though, I'm struggling more and more to find the balance between my types of work. My full-time job pays my bills. My unpaid volunteer work at New Letters on the Air helps me endure the full-time job, and may one day help me step into a paying job that I love. I'm beyond happy to be there, even if it means working longer hours. But after all those hours, I'm exhausted. I don't want to write. I don't even want to be around my friends. I just want to stay in and watch Curb Your Enthusiasm until it's time to go to bed and start the whole process over.

This is the hard work that everyone keeps talking about.

In today's America, where we value labor solely based on its economic worth, how are artists supposed to do their damn jobs? (And what of the artists who aren't nearly as privileged as I am?) When did we cease to champion creative endeavors? The answer, of course, is that we never much valued artists' contributions, at least not in the same way we value bankers' and lawyers'. And that's a problem. Art is the lens through which we see ourselves, as a collective and as individuals. It helps us find versions of the truth, most importantly those truths that are not quite comfortable or easy. That perspective is priceless.

Last Friday at New Letters, we were pulling together a show with writer Judith Ortiz Cofer, and she described her routine of waking up at 5 a.m. every morning to write, simply because it was the only time she could find. She sacrificed sleep and relationships to be able to find those hours, which is strangely comforting. Her priorities are evidence—to me, anyway—that it's impossible to have everything, and that that is okay. (I'm looking at you, Sheryl Sandberg.)

I'm trying hard myself to be comfortable with those sacrifices. Eventually, I'll get there.

You can hear this week's show here if you're interested.

As always, thank you for reading.