Tuesday, March 23

Reflection – Ed Happ

Before the scream

She sees the tail

of the mouse

already gone.

If scurrying could be rewound,

would she hear the little feet of time

that taps in her ears,

see the blur of the white under-belly

sweeping along the polished oak floors

in her life?

Will she slow it down

before the scream

and give thanks?

Sharon Olds recently said “Poetry, as in therapy, is about backing up the mouse that just ran into the hole in the wall.” Stop! What just happened? Roll-back the tape and do an instant replay in your mind. Write down what you saw. This is often my thought process in writing a poem. The most important word in the sequence, however, is not “write” …it’s “stop!”

When we pause, focus, stop the chatter, we are open to listening, to asking “what just happened?” The writing is then recording, like relating a dream after you woke up. That’s a kind of paying attention in reverse to what has just become “past” and a new openness to what may be coming around the corner.

– from an Advent sermon November 30, 2008