Small Beautiful Things

A poem for Richard

Dear friends,

I took a trip this past week and it changed me. It caused me to think about the world - and my work in psychology- quite differently. I’ll report on that shortly. In the meantime, I find myself wanting to think in ways that are quite inefficient, unproductive, and loose. I don’t particularly want to offer tips or ideas, like I often do.

So instead, on this Sunday morning, I offer you another poem, like I did last week. It’s one that I wrote for a friend who suffered a loss. In writing it, I was wrestling with the reality of how we lose precious people and things all the time, but somehow find a way to live with absence and gain back something else that is good.

Warmest Wishes,

Tracy

***

Small Beautiful Things
A poem for Richard

I took the brown corduroy jacket out of the closet
Predictable, but with flowers on the inner lining
And patched elbows
It had been years since I last wore it, and I thought
Ah, today let’s look professorial
Lifting it, I heard a noise coming from the right pocket
Tinkle-clink, metallic, but modest
Like change
But who keeps change in pockets anymore?

The thought came to me:
There must be small beautiful things in that pocket
But when I tried to picture them, nickels and quarters crowded my mind’s eye
I pushed them aside, preferring delightful possibility
The premonition that things were about to go my way 

I looked down at the jacket again, and saw on the other pocket
A small stain, hard and crusted, like dried glue
I briefly tried to scrub it off
But then imagined my daughter, at about the right height, pressing
Her runny nose against my jacket as she hugged me around my hips
And I, placing my arms gently on her slight shoulders,
Drawing her close

I left the stain there and put the jacket on
Then, I looked in the noisy pocket and found
A penny and a small brass button with an oiled bronze face, a match for the
Ones on my jacket
Small, even beautiful by some measures
I soon forgot them
Instead, all day, my mind gently returned to that other pocket, with its stubborn crust,
And the one who might have gifted it to me