What she uses to wedge
beneath one leg to level
the table could be a match
book she no longer needs. Could be
a roll of used clichés she’s been saving
to stuff in his pipe. But it’s gone—ashes
have settled to the bottom
halfway across the country. The bowl
never held much to make it worth wasting
a light on. As for the rest, she’s busy
writing it down.
Music sounds better without
the smoke. I’m the listener,
not the singer. But forgive me
if I mouth his words, even sing along,
as I walk across another skyway bridge
on my way to heightened
exhales. Hums crossing dangerously close
to humiliation—still better than
arrogantly setting
tobacco on fire again.
A nomad traveling in her own
head, she doesn’t want to settle
on one region of thought. To reject
ideas and emotions—it’s more
than that. A label stuck
to her baggage
underbelly won’t make it
through the conveyor system
to the other end. Another
home remains unclaimed.
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 3,000 times in 2010. That’s about 7 full 747s.
In 2010, there were 306 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 472 posts. There were 2 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 93kb.
The busiest day of the year was January 5th with 136 views. The most popular post that day was Rotate 180 Degrees.
The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, en.wordpress.com, google.com, jingleyanqiu.wordpress.com, and mail.live.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for night and day poems, night and day poem, amy nash, amy nash the rambler, and poems about night and day.
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
Rotate 180 Degrees December 2009
2 comments
About June 2009
9 comments
Wellington Place April 2010
20 comments
Under Influences (or Emil Nolde’s “Evening Glow”) February 2010
2 comments
Transfusion September 2010
2 comments
Varnished giclée prints drop her
onto an old farmstead’s surround
with pronounced trees
and roots. She is relieved
not to be
the only one who needs a public
place to be open today—one
besides a church,
or cineplex. She’s more interested
in tiny rebirths
than one monumental birth—those moments
that can unpack themselves
onto any given day’s matte canvas.
No longer his day, it will
come around again—
through slowly stretching
hours of light into shrinking
nights till contraction and expansion
trade places, then trade
again. Just after that final click
to go in reverse, his day
will return. And I hope to be
around to touch it—those untouchable
vibrations and holds.
They come in all sizes
to unlock doors, lock them
up again. They open
mail boxes, barricade cabinets and diaries
from curious eyes. Chiming
in my loose pocket, they turn
security into a musical instrument
before doubling back as a weapon
on dark, empty streets. They anchor
me to the city. A weight inside,
they keep me
from floating off
the ring around lost
before found.
I don’t remember
the sock monkey, but do
remember our fear
of it. My shadow tripped
over its own darkness
onto stumble
down tracks that no longer
exist. Today I remember
to find light in these
shortest of days,
have almost perfected turning
a corner
into a new moment’s alley
on an evening
you don’t have to carry
me home.
Four children four
seasons—does it begin
with spring or winter?
It all depends—
whether we are dormant
before we live, whether
we can begin again, whether
autumn counts at all.
Ink smears over knuckles,
a left-hander drags
her thoughts through the past.
No moment
is left clean.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 