People always ask me if they can buy my book, and I’m always like, “Oh yeah, I have these beautiful books I made, I should definitely make them available online somewhere so you can get one.” But then I never do it!
(Email me if you want to barter for either. US dollars are nice to have, but so is other people’s art.)
Now if you’ll excuse me, I must be going. I’m going to have a baby in about one minute, and there are a few more things that I should tend to before that arrival.
Driving through Vermont today
Monday::latemorning::pregnant
& the rural miracle
is 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.” on the radio
mixed into another cut
from “Get Rich or Die Tryin’”
which I know all the words to::which I am trying
to do myself
Riches so far include
these leaves finally turning bright
homemade deli pickles in the basement
healthy body::& family::& friends
but otherwise financially [technically] speaking
riches do not abound
especially right now
[[I worry::I try not to worry::I worry about it]]
The baby bounces with me
in the truck which bounces
at speeds higher than 50
[something that needs fixing]
[[like the other car
which is also broken]] [dead battery]
Today I will be invited as a guest on a radio show
Today I will buy myself the purple asters I covet
I can’t get out of chairs easily::or gracefully
Even women help me now at stores
In stretchy black & sagegreen clothes
I hustle forward with this baby beneath my skin
Like 50 I have 21 questions [[about birth::& life]]
I try to breathe like the articles tell me to
I fail::I thrive::I fail again::I’m fueled
by gasoline & fresh-dug beets & beliefs I can’t explain
I’m growing a child while I sleep
I’m growing a child while I weed the lavender
I’m growing a child while I fill the ice cube trays
I’m growing a child while I wipe down the toilet
I’m growing a child while I organize headbands I never wear
I’m growing a child while I edit Spotify playlists
I’m growing a child while I throw out all my underwear with holes
I’m growing a child while I water the geraniums
I’m growing a child while I add more salt to the pesto
I’m growing a child while I bobby-pin my hair
I’m growing a child while I remove dirt from my fingernails
I’m growing a child while the maples slip into their best red outfits, while the mornings dampen with mist, while I pack cucumbers and hot peppers into jars, while I bag corn and blackberries and peppers for the freezer, while I simmer plum compote and pick the last batch of cosmos, while the cows enjoy their last spin around the paddocks, while I braid the garlic and wrap the yarrow in string, while summer unzips her skirt and throws it atop the yellowing milkweed, the New England asters, the spent blossoms of Queen Anne—
Brooklyn smells like palo santo
and wet daffodils as I schlep
to the next set of stairs
that leads to someone
I love.
I’m never in the city
and when I am
every second
is so city
I have to laugh.
The dogs dressed better
than I. Everyone clutching
their phones
like children on a rollercoaster
in need of their mother’s hand.
Even the bookstore is curated
to please the eye
and it pleases me
to see people I love stepping off the subway
like celebrities
and it’s pleasurable
to be one of so many
planning
buying
laughing
at once
over brunch
and for just a moment
the weight of breakfast
is heavier and sweeter-smelling
than the spring clouds bearing rain.
There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.
I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled
this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.
I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.
And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it’s necessary
to talk about trees.
You know that feeling
when you have just downed
your morning cup
of Positive Outlook Beverage
and you feel that absolutely everything
you have ever wanted to do with your life
is possible
and even though that feeling
only lasts an hour
if you use your time right
you can do everything pressing
and a few things creative
in that first caffeinated hour
and then spend the rest of the day
feeling like a goddamn superheroine.
I’m an ordained minster, and I love doing weddings.
For this wedding, I got to have some fun with the ceremony, as the wedding was…fake. It was an event meant to showcase a handful of small Vermont businesses, and so although the photos depict real people having a REAL GOOD TIME, the whole thing was designed as a promotional shoot.
I didn’t need to write a fake ceremony in order for the ceremony to be photographed, but I wanted to. Because when you’re going to wear neutral colors and drink wine and eat fabulous food with your friends, you might as well take the opportunity to make them laugh while standing on a rock outcropping in a pond. As I always say.
***
ORTENZIA + JASPER
We are gathered here today to celebrate the union of Ortenzia Caviglia and Jasper Ankle. Theirs is a love so perfect—so well-designed—that it almost appears to have been manufactured by an agrarian creative studio. Their love extends beyond the physical world, beyond simplistic ideas of “reality” and “real people,” and enters into the realm of the sublime.
Do these two people truly exist? Is this a real marriage? Does anyone have cell phone service? Is Kanye West a “good person”?
The answer to these questions, my friends, is no. Does that make this party any less fun or this love any less worth remembering? Of course not.
This day shall be remembered as a day when two people pretended to be two other people, and other people in attendance also pretended to be other people, and photographs were taken, and food was eaten, and beverages imbibed, and later on, when other other people viewed the photos, they sighed to themselves, and they swooned, and they purchased things for sale in the photos.
May the love between Jasper and Ortenzia fortify our convictions that love is real, that parties are delicious, and that yes, we can all have successful businesses in rural Vermont. As Jasper once said to Ortenzia, quoting the rapper 50 Cent in his hit song “21 Questions” featuring Nate Dogg: “I love you like a fat kid loves cake.” And Ortenzia replied, “Samesies.” And the whole world sighed in contentment.
And now, without further ado, I will turn to these two people, people, who, in another life, perhaps, were already married to each other and already had a baby and congratulations on that by the way, and say:
panache, perhaps 