Transcript

I’m Major Jackson and this is The Slowdown.

It was one of those days; my lower back ached from a poor night’s sleep; the kitchen sink clogged just before my morning commute; I’d left a pen in one of my shirts and thus destroyed several garments in the washing machine; a tense exchange with a co-worker about open carry gun laws left me wondering about our friendship. On top of that, I received a notice of rejection from a dream literary journal for a sheaf of poems that I submitted a year ago. I was in a surly mood. Though outside it was wet and overcast from the day’s earlier rainstorm, I decided to go for a walk.

At an intersection, awaiting the signal, a father checked his device while absentmindedly holding his daughter’s hand. As if to test her little duck shoes, she jumped up and down in a puddle of water and splashed his pants legs. He put away his cell phone then mussed her hair.

It appeared she was a kindergartener, and he was picking her up from nearby Orchard Elementary School. Her backpack was a Ghostbusters proton pack that was as big as she was. I passed them and gave a broad smile to her. She said hi, and I melted into a space of positivity. I hurried back to work.

No matter my attitude or the kind of day I’m having, if I catch sight of certain things, I am fortified, brought back to a state of joy, or at minimum, a state of calm. These are my visual healing stones: a glittering mountain lake, my perfectly pressed dry cleaning, an early winter landscape of evergreens heavy with snow, a group of beloved friends seated at a candlelit dining table, Didi’s smile, a new pair of sneakers just after I’ve lifted the lid of the box and pulled back the tissue paper.

Today’s poem, a sonnet, holds the truth that the world is capable of awakening us out of our petrified states. We can be charmed back into our bodies and repaired, so that we feel again, sometimes acutely, the sweetness of our existence more than the hostile and profane.

Something Sweet
by Hannah Lowe

Winter mornings, I’d buy hot chocolate
and the red-haired green-eyed girl who served me
would smile and sometimes hand me it for free
and I’d drink it down and smoke a cigarette
in the park across from college – something sweet
with something bitter. Before I crossed the track,
I tucked away my numb heart in an ice-pack
in my pocket, where it felt cold and wet

and unforgettable – and went and taught
all day, when I didn’t care about the theme 
of a poem, the shape of a play. Then marking essays
after class, I’d watch the kids roll out
in their rainbow coats and rucksacks, like streams
of paint – so bright I had to look away.

“Something Sweet” by Hannah Lowe from THE KIDS © 2021, Hannah Lowe. Used by permission of Bloodaxe Books.