Let This Day
by Annie Lighthart
Let this day born in sackcloth and ashes
shift. Let it change, rearrange. Let it come back
made new and barking, snout pushed to table
with joy. Let it wash us wildly with its tongue
and shake its thick pelt. Let the dust rise off
in waves, in solar clouds, and let our old selves
float up in that haze, particles massed by the window,
motes among a thousand other motes. Now see
our two: we are the two motes laughing as they leave,
the two specks somersaulting right through the screen.
From Pax.
Fernwood Press, 2021. Buy the book here.
If you’re anything like me, especially during the pandemic, you’ve had many days that were “born in sackcloth and ashes”—that is, days which at first felt plain or downright impossible to bear. Yet what so many of us have learned over the past year is that the feeling or mood of a moment can always shift, and often more completely than we might have expected. In “Let This Day,” Annie Lighthart makes the case for not trying to force some immediate alteration in outlook, and for not resisting it either. Instead, she says, “Let it change, rearrange.” Her words here remind me of what Rilke once wrote: “No feeling is final.” I find just as much reassurance in this poem, too, in the way the day transforms into a wild dog, nudging its nose against the table “with joy.” And how the old selves of the two people in the poem—no longer needed—turn into dust motes “laughing as they leave,” reduced enough in size now to fly “right through the screen” of the open window.
Invitation for Writing & Reflection: Describe a time when you were able to just sit back and stay with a difficult mood or emotion, until it changed into something else. And if you find yourself having one of those days right now, you might begin with Lighthart’s title and first words, “Let this day,” and see how the writing about a mind-state can also enact a kind of transformation.
ABOUT THE POET: ANNIE LIGHTHART
Annie Lighthart is a poet and teacher who started writing poetry after her first visit to an Oregon old-growth forest. She has taught at Boston College and with writers of all ages, teaching writing workshops wherever and whenever she can. Poems from her books Iron String and Pax have been featured on The Writer’s Almanac and in various anthologies, including Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems and Healing the Divide. Lighthart’s poems have been turned into choral music, used in healing projects in Ireland, England, and New Zealand, and have traveled farther than she has.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: JAMES CREWS
James Crews is the author of four collections of poetry: The Book of What Stays, Telling My Father, Bluebird, and Every Waking Moment. He is also the editor of two anthologies: Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and have been reprinted in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry and featured on Tracy K. Smith’s podcast, The Slowdown. James teaches at SUNY-Albany and lives with his husband in Vermont.
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I am having one of those days that are just plain meh. In fact, the last 3 days are simply unrecognisable in how they begin – it’s this same feeling of numbness and exhaustion. And then something happens, something shifts, and by the time the day ends, I am able to recognise bits and pieces of hidden beauty in it. This poem affirms that feeling of joy. Thanks, I needed it.
Thank you so much for sharing, Jyotsna. “Bits and pieces of hidden beauty” is very well said!
Nice Poem, its make my day, Thanks for sharing