I Come Home Wanting To Touch Everyone by Stephen Dunn
Bless you, 2006. I took this from here, because this is exactly what I want to talk about:
Things I learned this year
That the world is both good and bad to me. The funny thing is, and the thing that I’m most thankful for, despite the circumstances, is that the world gives me the good and bad at the right time. I never thought about it before, and I just realized it this year: whenever something good happens to me, swak na swak lang sa panahon. And whenever something bad happens, I was in the right state of mind and environment that I was able to pull through it. Another thing: the world is also small. It can become small even for just two people.
People I met this year
Definitely people I’ve met through work and through the workshop! 🙂 Also I am glad to be able to meet up with old friends finally, after a few years of not seeing each other. And spending more time with new friends this year, that is, is still something I want to do again and again.
Things I don’t want to take with me to 2007
my cowardice at letting go of things I should’ve
my weak body (I want a stronger, healthier one, of course)
my sense of awkwardness
Things I want to hold close as I pass into 2007
poetry, mine and others’
people I love and have come to love
Things I’m looking forward to in 2007
opportunities, lots and lots of them
chances, lots and lots of them
grace, lots and lots of them 🙂
Things that were life-changing in 2006
the final break-up
the national writers workshop
friends
and doing stuff that I tasked myself to do
Things I hope to accomplish by the end of 2007
keep in touch with people who are important to me
read lots and lots of books
write poetry (and some fiction)
learn how to drive
and many more
2003 was for balance.
2004 was for choices
2005 was for the self.
And this year is for being here, and being found.
Salamat, 2006. You’ve been good to me. You’ve also taken a lot, but you’ve been good. Maraming, maraming salamat.
I Come Home Wanting To Touch Everyone
Stephen DunnThe dogs greet me, I descend
into their world of fur and tongues
and then my wife and I embrace
as if we’d just closed the door
in a motel, our two girls slip in
between us and we’re all saying
each other’s names and the dogs
Buster and Sundown are on their hind legs,
people-style, seeking more love.
I’ve come home wanting to touch
everyone, everything; usually I turn
the key and they’re all lost
in food or homework, even the dogs
are preoccupied with themselves,
I desire only to ease
back in, the mail, a drink,
but tonight the body-hungers have sent out
their long-range signals
or love itself has risen
from its squalor of neglect.
Everytime the kids turn their backs
I touch my wife’s breasts
and when she checks the dinner
the unfriendly cat on the dishwasher
wants to rub heads, starts to speak
with his little motor and violin–
everything, everyone is intelligible
in the language of touch,
and we sit down to dinner inarticulate
as blood, all difficulties postponed
because the weather is so good.
Para sa mundong umiinog.
Manigong bagong taon sa lahat.
