“I’m not making this up. I’ve made it down. That’s what
writing is, after all the nonsense, getting down so low the world offers a
merciful new angle, a larger vision made of small things. The lint suddenly a
huge sheet of fog exactly the size of your eyeball. And you look through it and
see the thick steam in the all-night bathhouse . . . .”
--Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Not making it up, making it down. Writing gathers my
actual experience, what I see, taste, and swallow; what I feel under and over
my toes. The most mundane and ordinary thing becomes a fascination. I
pause to rub the pale bruise on my foot. It bears the story of Friday’s hike
through blackened trees and overgrown brush in the Columbia Gorge, where a stick
wedged its way into my hiking sandal and jammed against my toe joint. The
bruise shines like newt skin, lime green and smooth. This is not good, bad, happy,
sad. This is not something to judge a day by. This is a receiving of Earth
experience, story, and imagination all at once.
I wish for you a larger vision made of small things. The quiet
hush of fascination. The courage to look at what the fire has burned, and where
the bruises have softened you.
As the desire draws you, so the story waits like the
heartbeat of something yet unborn. Draw
your ear close and shiver with the beating of it: welcome the poem, and the
world, and your heart.
