Day 6: #YouAreHere (a Nod to Ada Limón) - #WriteOut2024 @WritingProject (Posting on Saturday Morning & Getting Back Outdoors)

I Was There &

b.r.crandall

I should have written a poem about the meteor shower & the super moon rising; it was scheduled as a coincidence, but the sun was about to set and put Charles Island to sleep. I should have written a poem about our skyline & the light acting as if Georgia O’Keefe could have lived here, painting us New England flowers. I should have written about the blaze that appeared to be burning Leo’s head or the way the east was whirling cotton candy to match the pink on Beverly’s sweatshirt. I should have written about two dogs on a leash trying everything in their power to reach seagulls, runners, & moving cars (they really wanted to run along the beach). I should have written about anxiety, fear, the stress of a society going insane, where truths are now untruths & untruths are now the truth (I swear to God). I should of written about God & what the intention really really is…the starvation in Sudan, the shooting of children in the middle east (or middle schools), the nose of Pinnochio, & how Christians are claiming Christianity to be really Un-Christian. I should have written about he one crab dropped from the sky to be cracked open by hungry birds or the woman who stopped us to ask, “What are y’all looking at?” I should have written about the hoodie I was wearing, under the thermal jacket, & how my fingers felt like they would break off because middle age means that 58 degrees is the end of the world. I should have written about the low tide, the smell of sludge from the bottom of the sea, or the dance of puddles retreating from where the ocean once was. I should of written about friendship, rituals, those who read the zodiac, & how unimportant we all are. Instead, I looked up panoramically and realized the miraculousness of being in a place where larger stories will always be written: I’m only a parasite for the Great Whatever trapped by this need to know and a hubris for being creative. I should have written about there, where I was, & made a bigger difference. But I didn’t. I was there and what I should have written went unwritten, simply because the bigger stories were written in the sky for me to understand.