The poet they probably shouldn’t have sent. I watch anime and am sometimes accused of reading books. I'm writing a long gay giant robot story in verse—probably this millennium's best yuri mecha epic poem, through lack of competition.


'Now praise those names on tombs of steel engraved | And toll this rotting country’s countless bells.'


hecker
@hecker

“Love, death, and the changing of the seasons” is the theme of this group of Sunday night poems, and tonight’s poem is about the second item in that list. It’s what used to be called a memento mori, and these days it hits a lot harder with me than it used to. “Otherwise,” by Jane Kenyon:


I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.

At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

Kenyon died of leukemia at the age of 47; “Otherwise” is the next to last poem in her final book of poems, Constance.

If you’d like to read more


You must log in to comment.