The Mower
by Philip Larkin

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.

STUDIO NOTES

Meditations in an Emergency
by Cameron Awkward-Rich

I wake up & it breaks my heart.
I draw the blinds & the thrill of rain breaks my heart. I go outside.

I ride the train, walk among the buildings, men in Monday suits.
The flight of doves, the city of tents beneath the underpass,
the huddled mass, old women hawking roses, & children—
all of them—break my heart.

There’s a dream I have in which I love the world.
I run from end to end like fingers through her hair.
There are no borders, only wind.

Like you, I was born.
Like you, I was raised in the institution of dreaming.
Hand on my heart.
Hand on my stupid heart.

If I can stop one Heart from breaking
by Emily Dickinson

If I can stop one Heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one Life the Aching,
Or cool one Pain,
Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

INFLUENCES

Anneliese Hager (Germany, 1904–1997)
Anneliese Hager is a largely overlooked artist whose preferred medium was the photogram. She described their tonal inversions as “white shadows,” which I love for how it captures the way light can turn absence into presence. She influences me not only for her devotion to cameraless making, but because she paired her photograms with her own poems—showing how image and language can hold feeling together, which deeply aligns with my work.

Image: Memory of the Skjendal Glacier, gelatin silver photogram

REFLECTIONS

My thoughts are consumed by the cruelty and suffering so many are experiencing. It’s hard to have faith in humanity when innocent souls are being killed and so much evil goes unanswered and unchanged. I have been turning to Frederick Douglass’s writings—his insistence that we have to be willing to be uncomfortable if we want things to change.

“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

— Frederick Douglass, “West India Emancipation” (speech, Canandaigua, NY, August 4, 1857)

Reflection/Journal prompt: If it feels right, write down what you wish were different right now. Then answer any of the following: What does this make me want to protect? What does this clarify that I value? What kind of person do I want to be in response to this? Where is kindness still possible today? What is one small way I can take care of someone (or myself) this week?

Until next time… Protect your inner life and let the kindness you extend to others be your measure.

In presence and wonder,

Debora