Yesterday, Maggie Smith (the poet) wrote a column entitled “Cross-Pollination.” In it she said,
“It often feels magical to me, the way our work is constantly in conversation — with the work of others, and with the work we’ve done before, with the world we live in. Everything touches.”
Maggie Smith
I read this quote after everything else happened. It gave me goosebumps.
Here’s what happened. First thing yesterday morning, I read this poem by Jane Hirschfield in THE ASKING.
Next, I wrote this cherita in response:
After I added the cherita to my IG stories and the Stafford Challenge 2024 collection on my profile page, I got ready to go to the health club for my Wednesday workout. But my car keys weren’t in the basket where we always leave them. Nor were they in my purse with the house keys. Or the pockets of the coat I wore on Tuesday. The car was locked, so I must have brought them inside. AJ didn’t have them. They were nowhere to be found.
Around and around the house I went, looking at every possible surface. Then I remembered that I had taken the red insulated bag with drinks and snacks to my day of roster judging the election on Tuesday. Not in the bag.
At this point, I grabbed a flashlight to try spotlighting it. And suddenly, there it was:
Between the cutting board and the sink. Where I put it down so I could put the spoon from the red bag into the dishwasher before taking the red bag to the basement and consequently forgetting about the key.
Habit. Routine. I’ve learned that life runs more smoothly if I make sure I put things away where they belong. A place for everything and everything in its place. Which works, except when it doesn’t. In this case, though, Habit and Routine gave me a Life Imitates Art / Art Imitates Life kind of day.
And goosebumps.
Rose has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Imagine the Possibilities.
A(nother) Year of Reading 