The Art of Disappearing
The Art of Disappearing
By Naomi Shihab Nye
When they say Don’t I know you?
say no.
When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.
If they say We should get together
say Why?
It’s not that you don’t love them anymore.
You’re trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.
When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven’t seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don’t start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.
Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.
When Death Comes
By Mary Oliver
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
On Soulmates
“You might hate how overused the word ’soulmate’ is, but this is the way you make one. A soulmate is the person who’s gotten the chance to see something real about you. You risked; you bared ugliness; you forged a bond. This friendship becomes something more lasting than a superficial thing.
“Soulmate means a friend who understands something about you and so lives flexibly in this relationship, in which you can both risk a little, and insult a little, and dare a little, and stray a little, while something solid connects you at the center.”
- Ilana Simons, author of A Life of One’s Own
Beware of your own press
“…you need to be authentic with another living person. Too strong a need for public polish can pervert you.”
- Ilana Simons
Try Something
“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. ”
—Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd U.S. president
Stretch Marks
“A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimensions.”
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., U.S. supreme court justice
