Poems on the Moon, Going to Book Club, and How to Try to Do Good and not Despair

Cat musicians and a seal at a local nursery

Poems on the Moon

First of all, a thanks to Escape Into Life for including me in their issue on the moon: Lunacy. There are poems by my friends Kelli Russell Agodon, Erica Goss, and Kristen Berkey-Abbott as well as beautiful art work. (And you can read my previous Escape Into Life feature of moon poems here in case you missed it.)

This week’s news did not get better after my last post (heartbreaking shooting yesterday of  11 people at a synagogue reminded me of a bombing when I was in fifth grade at a friend’s synagogue’s child care center – I remember it was the second time as a child I’d encountered incomprehensible hatred – the first was watching klansmen walk down my street in Tennessee when I was seven.) We have a President who literally irresponsibly whipped up hate at rallies against the very people who were threatened with bombs this week, the week people were shot in grocery stores and their places of worship. This government is shameful and propelled by the very worst impulses of Americans. It’s very important to vote for people who do not encourage hate and racism. You are responsible for your own government – so don’t forget to vote! (And there have been reports of voting machine irregularities, so double-check if you can vote with a paper ballot in your state.)

Yesterday I went to a local farmstand and then visited a nearby nursery and saw this charming display of cat musician and seal fountain statues, and thought you deserved to see them too. Ah, for a yard full of musically-inclined cat statues. I’m itching to plant an apple tree, too.

Going to Book Club

Today I’m going to get up early and get ready for a “virtual” book club visit to talk about Field Guide to the End of the World. It’s a good opportunity to talk about poetry with other people who care about books, which is always cheering. One of the ways I cheered myself this week despite rejections and relentlessly terrible news was turning off the television and computer and reading books. Books remind me of how I developed my own set of ethics as a kid – how The Lorax helped me develop into an environmentalist and Horton Hatches a Who a reminder of keeping promises. How reading books by different authors from different countries helped me imagine what it was like to live in a different country, speak a different language – how The Diary of Anne Frank and Elie Weisel helped me understand the horrors of what people did to Jewish people just because they were Jewish, how reading Cry, the Beloved Country helped me know the evils of apartheid, all the dystopias I read about as a kid – from Handmaid’s Tale to Brave New World to 1984, from Ray Bradbury’s Illustrated Man and Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone stories – illustrated the possibilities of evil, and how to stand up against it. Madeleine L’Engle’s Swiftly Tilting Planet and the nuclear fears of the seventies and eighties. Books changed who I was and how I saw the world, how I saw right and wrong, and this gave me hope. Maybe by writing something – we can help others understand and empathize and connect with a world not their own. We should fight for libraries and help teach books that reach beyond out own experiences and encourage others to read and talk about books as much as we can.

My two watchful guardians

How to Do Good

If you, like me, have been struggling with despair in the face of horrific hate, racism, and evil, think of what we can do to bring light. Yes, books – reading and writing and encouraging others to read them. Yes, voting – even if you feel like it’s a pain and you’re worried your one vote won’t make a difference, it can. Yes, giving money to charities – from fighting diseases to fighting childhood poverty to support for causes like the environment or ending racism or rights for the oppressed and refugees – and if you can’t afford to give money, as I couldn’t for some years, you can volunteer, which always helps you to connect to your local community, which can lessen a feeling of alienation. I had a dream last night where I was asking famous women about how to do good, and they sat down and talked to me about practical ways to put good into your world instead of evil. Spreading a little kindness – I talked in my last blog post about telling writers who have inspired you about how they’ve impacted you, but calling a lonely relative or friend who’s been going through a hard time, standing up for those who can’t stand up for themselves – all work. I woke up feeling less despairing – the brief blue sky that appeared this morning didn’t hurt – and maybe I’m naive, but I still believe – just as much as when I was a kid – in facing evil and fighting it with the resources we have.

As October comes to an end, I hope you get a chance to see the moon through the clouds – and the light, even as the darkness seems to stretch out and overpower it.