reasons to survive November

A small and big thing I do often to arrive and be with myself is to read a poem. I don’t have a life with a lot of extra time that I get to choose what to do with right now. That is the shape of this moment.

So, having said that I am on the look out for things that land me and allow for aliveness to be part of what I do in the day. Poems do it for me. And because it is November, here is one for you:

November like a train wreck -

by Tony Hoagland

as if a locomotive made of cold
had hurtled out of Canada
and crashed into a million trees,
flaming the leaves, setting the woods on fire.

The sky is a thick, cold gauze -
but there's a soup special at the Waffle House downtown,
and the Jack Parsons show is up at the museum,
full of luminous red barns.

- Or maybe I'll visit beautiful Donna,
the kickboxing queen from Santa Fe,
and roll around in her foldout bed.

I know there are some people out there
who think I am supposed to end up
in a room by myself

with a gun and a bottle full of hate,
a locked door and my slack mouth open
like a disconnected phone.

But I hate those people back
from the core of my donkey soul
and the hatred makes me strong
and my survival is their failure,

and my happiness would kill them
so I shove joy like a knife
into my own heart over and over

and I force myself toward pleasure,
and I love this November life
where I run like a train
deeper and deeper
into the land of my enemies.