Poetry

I had almost forgotten how to feel hopeful -- or -- Let's hop to it!

Last Thursday I stood in the rain, one of four short retired women. All of us have lived in our town for decades. We smiled and waved our hands and our signs at passing cars. A number of folks waved back or honked their horns. Strangely, despite standing in the rain for an hour, we had a pretty good time.

With the help of my local Indivisible chapter friends, I organized and listed some events on Mobilize — and much to my surprise I got an email from Indivisible (the Mother Ship) of the local events in my area and mine were included! They are ongoing — Thursdays and Saturdays. I have become an organizer!

On Saturday (our second Saturday) there were more people! Enough for groups on opposite corners. We got a lot of response from drivers, and a much clearer view of the mountain. We also had our own teenage frog!

The week before the election my granddaughter and I were sick with a virus, so I didn’t get much got done. I did manage to drop in the mail, on schedule, my 100 post cards to voters in Pennsylvania to ask that they make a plan to vote yes to retain the liberal Supreme Court Justices.

By Monday, November 3rd, I felt better, but my mood was somber. I was dreading election day.

Nonetheless, it didn’t take long on Tuesday evening for good news to roll in; and it kept rolling, and rolling, and rolling. (Some races were so decisive they were called almost immediately after the polls closed.)

Yet for most of Wednesday, I didn’t know how to feel. I couldn’t access that positive feeling. I think I had forgotten somehow that things could go right and that I could feel glad. I have been waving signs at traffic since February. I’ve been writing and calling my representatives, I’ve been attending meetings, but the tide kept pushing the current against my legs and making me unsure of my footing.

Slowly, however, it began to dawn on me — the election showed that the tide has been turning. The current is changing now, and our headway is less labored. Still, we have lost so much ground it will take a long time to rebuild what we had.

The election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of NYC was especially encouraging. His campaign message, highlighted in his acceptance speech, wrote Antonia Scatton on Substack (Turn Up the Volume, Nov 7), was an example of how poetic communication can spark people to believe they have agency in their life and their government. The boldface is hers.

“…we won because we insisted that no longer would politics be something that is done to us. Now, it is something that we do.”

Mamdani uses specific imagery that lets us feel our shared experience.

“… breathe this moment in. We have held our breath for longer than we know. We have held it in anticipation of defeat, held it because the air has been knocked out of our lungs too many times to count, held it because we cannot afford to exhale. Thanks to all of those who sacrificed so much. We are breathing in the air of a city that has been reborn.”

Yes, yes, I feel like I have been holding my breath for so long now.

I have been clenching my jaw and knotting my forehead. I’ve been pinching my eyes.

And suddenly it’s late Autumn and my eyes are open to a world full of color lit by warm and slanted November light.

Can you see the Northern Flicker in the first photo?

A lifelong friend sent me a poem via text message — “Poem” by Elizabeth Bishop. It was published in the New Yorker in 1972.

My friend and I had the amazing fortune to meet with the actual poet in 1974. Bishop was doing a poetry reading at the University of Washington where she was also a visiting professor. She was no doubt in contact (for some reason) with the instructor of our writing class. So, our teacher arranged for a small group of high school students (disclaimer it was a private school) to have an audience with Ms. Bishop at the instructor’s house. The poet talked. She read. She spoke in a rich and deliberate voice. And I was taken aback because I had never realized words had such power when they were so carefully arranged — like flowers making a landscape in a vase. Artfully chosen words, rich in context, could evoke images that could transcend time, space, memory, and feeling. A careful choice of words could illustrate all of human experience, for Pete’s sake!

Can art and poetry move people to do great things? To take back the agency of their own lives? I think so. Yes. It can.

Mamdani continue in his speech:

“For as long as we can remember, the working people of New York have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands. Fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor, palms calloused from delivery bike handlebars, knuckles scarred with kitchen burns: these are not hands that have been allowed to hold power. And yet, over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater. Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it. The future is in our hands.”

Yes. Keep making art.

I haven’t gotten much done in the last two weeks, but now I feel better, I need to get moving. The crafts sale is December 6.

I managed to paint the ornaments yesterday. I didn’t want to do what I had done in the past, I have gotten some new cookie cutters, and some stamps for texture, and so I got out some colors and … I think I like these. They are not fired yet, the dark color is cobalt so will turn a rich blue and the clay will be white. Some of the snow flake shapes became flowers. I will be adding some gold luster.

I found some moments of contentment and ease when I was painting them. I could breath in and out.

I used some different techniques including stamping for texture and using sgrafitto.

A friend asked if I could somehow put a political spin into my art. I thought about it and then I knew — mugs with The Frog.

Question is: what should be written on the cup?

RESIST or DON’T OBEY or ORGANIZE? (Or maybe, all three?)

Let me know what you like best.

Onward,

Ann

November 10, 2025

PS I’ve enjoyed reading Rebecca Solnit Meditations in an Emergency

In 2025 We Showed Up: Notes on Resistance to the Regime