Based on / a true story I’m sorry I droppedSome wasabi peasDown where you satEagerly under myBench, waiting forWhatever may come. I wanted to tell youIt wasn’t intentional.I can imagine thatWasabi may lead toAvian indigestionAnd beak irritation. Although of courseIf any birds were goingTo enjoy wasabi peasIt would certainly beLondon’s cosmopolitanPigeon population. They just slipped …
Author Archives: A.C. Smith
Energy: a paradox
Why is it thatThe more energyYou put into lifeThe more energyYou get out of it? Shouldn’t it beThat the more Energy we spendThe less we have?Like emptying outA bank account.But somehow lifeDoesn’t seem toWork that way. For example:The longer I stayIn bed, the moreTired I am,Except whenI really do needTo have a rest.(Like this morningWhen …
Insomnia companion, part 7: Welcoming the Light
Perhaps it has been a long nightPerhaps, the sky is beginningTo take on a different colourBrightening, growing light. What if those wakeful hoursWere not a frustrated wasteOf lonely and unwelcomeAlertness, of misspent rest? What if instead we sawThat time as keeping vigilFor unnamed strangersOr even the world itself. Those hours were not spentIn vain. We …
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A thought on marriage: the ingredients of happiness
It’s a funny moment isn’t it, where the blinders go on and the walls go up – where we stop thinking and go into blind action like strange little robots. For me, it feels like my settings have been switched, instead of operating calmly and reflectively, I just blindly charge ahead with whatever it feels …
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the space between
between the question and the answer there is a space whether it isthe blink of an eye or an interminable stretch this is the placewhere we all live every birth is a question every deathis an answer and lifeis the state ofjoyous uncertaintythat hoversin the airbetween every breathof our universe Note: I normally love using …
I finally know whether to buy light or dark soy sauce
Growing up, I had no idea there was more than one kind of soy sauce. It simply wasn’t part of my world. As an adult, I started to notice the ‘dark’ and ‘light’ soy sauce designations. I never knew which one to pick, so I would just grab one and work with that. (And I …
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Snapdragons
For Anita For the little girlFor whom flowersWere not enough Unless they couldBreathe fire andNip your fingers I treasure herFierce imagination,Her gentle heart And her eye forBeauty that seesBeyond surfaces Note: I got an email that the Mother’s Day flowers might not have arrived, so I made these instead. Love you, Mama. Photo by Ashkan …
Divergence
For Mother’s Day Fused, viscerallyBlood and boneBodies knittedTogether, whole Then – over timeA gradual shiftingSo small, so slowIt happens invisibly And yet somehowFurther and furtherWe drift apartThe world remakingItself Painless on the surfaceYet violent beneathPressure buildsRivers of magma flowPropelling the futureCracking and colliding Until an ocean stands Between our bodies It’s natural, necessary –How the …
Gratitude is enough
Yesterday, I cooked a double batch of pasta sauce and took it to a local friend who has just welcomed a baby. It was such a joy to help out in this tangible sort of way – and it was interesting getting to be on the giving side, since for the past few years I …
Crossings
The people that come into our livesCrossing paths, or deeply intertwiningBecome the scaffoldingOn which we fix our ownAffections and inspirationsPrecious, even when paths diverge In ways that go beyond understandingOur lives become knotted togetherLike ivy climbing brickwork heightsImpossible to scale alone, but secureIn the companionship of others Forging their own paths to the sun What …