CLAIRE SCOTT

Where to Begin Again

I have discarded the gods
like leftover tuna sandwiches
stacks of them stuffed in the compost
including Odin, Shiva, Baal, Sango and Amaterasu

bitter ends of unanswered prayers
to pastel angels, scraps of saints
and multi-armed goddesses
all bling and blang

no way to bargain with refractory gods
no way to seduce them with hymns and chants
dharanis and tallits and offerings of ghee
hours spent on arthritic knees

under overrated stars
muttering useless nostrums
my list of needs multiplying like dandelions
in my lamentable lawn

my granddaughter dances past
her sequined skirt all rinsed and silver
no thoughts in her nine-year-old head
of not enough

I didn’t realize that to pray
to really pray                      
one must want nothing 

And the Point is to Live Everything

      Letters to a Young Poet
—Rainer Maria Rilke

Days slipper away, sliding out from under us
almost soundlessly, like falling snow
how can today be Sunday, the thick blue-sleeved
New York Times thumped on our driveway
how can it be April when we just
put Christmas in cardboard boxes
how can I no longer reach the top shelf
where I keep my mother’s favorite crystal
and why does time flow one way
something about entropy, something about disorder
the languid mystery of the unknown

Rilke says to love the questions
because you are not yet ready for answers
live in the flow, the wuwei, the Tao
of impermanence until one distant day
the questions will dissolve
a spider spinning
a sparrow soaring
being the moment, perfect in and of itself
but I worry I won’t be around
that the locked rooms will never open for me
and how can wrinkles keep feathering my face

Claire Scott is an award-winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review and Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.