Kismet
by Ethel Rackin
One day we’ll get the message to start packing our bags, scoop up our puppy and run for our lives. For now, this was happening on TV, but deep down we knew it was us losing everything. It was us huddling in a tunnel with our neighbors, building a fire and trying to find food. If we waited long enough, would someone rescue us? Would we ever be able to go home, resume our jobs, send our kids back to school? A woman next to us offered us some bread. Others had blankets they were willing to share. There is no end to our suffering.
Read our interview with Poet of the Week, Ethel Rackin, wherein she discusses the realities of daily life and dreaming and thinking our way out through poetry. About the latter, she says:
My word for soul is mind, and my work tends toward that axis. I also hope that mine is a poetry very much of the heart. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I hope to achieve by writing poems, and my preliminary answer to that question is: to offer some semblance of recognition, solace, and surprise.
Life as we know it can change in the blink of an eye.
This could be any of us at any moment.