What the Living Do

I'm very conscious that it's been a while since I posted anything. It bothers me that I'm so busy with other things - trivial things, in the grand scheme - that I can't seem to find the time to write about my brother, although of course he's always on my mind. Right now I'm in my office, waiting for a student to finish up an exam, and it has occurred to me to post a link to a poem that I heard on the radio today. Marie Howe is, I gather, a moderately obscure poet who came to the attention of Terry Gross (of NPR's "Fresh Air") recently, after a poem of hers appeared in a new anthology of twentieth-century poetry. The poem is about her younger brother, who died of AIDS in the late 1980s, and it captures something of what it's like to become absorbed with trivialities in the face of profound sadness. Rather than being resentful, however, it suggests that those very trivialities are what makes living so wonderful - to have the luxury of shopping for hairbrushes or searching for a parking space is a profound privilege, because just to be alive is a profound privilege.

Anyway, here it is. My student must be nearly finished by now, and I need to go find my car and start my commute home.