Spoken: Only The Good Dishes

I grew up with my mother’s voice in my ear, reading poetry and stories to us. It iss Hiawatha by Longfellow I remember the most. That rhythmic beat of syllables and echo that sounded somehow like leather and woodsmoke. She made words sound like music and transported me to a First Nations encampment beside a river.

Often I live in the world between words and sound. I write them, hundreds of them day after day. Sometimes I speak them. Most often, I find myself writing words that are meant to be spoken aloud. 

I practice conversations while driving in my car that become letters or emails eventually. And even when I proofread from the page or the screen - I read it aloud. 

So this podcast is short, to the point and hopefully a luscious little treat for your ears, the same way I love to hear my mother read Longfellow. 

I publish written work in several collections of essays. In this podcast, I will read select works aloud along with snippets of poetry and old pieces of prose. So welcome to Spoken, a collection of essays and the sound of my voice. 

This features an essay I published at the end of last year:

Only the Good Dishes.

I hope you’ll enjoy this new audio feature.

Here’s the text of the poem, originally published here.

Counting Stars on the 19th Hour

this then, is how it can be

in the midst of a storm on the sixth day

of the seventh week but only the 19th hour

now making a star map from definitions

this then, is how it can be to know

but not make knowing a cage

instead just knowing, a long intention

and a longing for safe and true and kind

but knowing is measured so differently

this then, is how it can be to halt abruptly at the pass

the knowing and unknowing

one counts in minutes and hours and questions and answers and singular actions

and the other measures the expanse of singularity

like the universe, one ever expanding idea of another

a deep, blue diamond erupting from an earth stone

a long unceasing listen and look

this then, is how to see one thing as another

by definition of all things and nothing

a half of a half and a whole and an inversion

an upside-down moon, to see a star and not a starry sky

this then, is to kiss your counting – minutes, hours, touches, questions

with a soft, warm, expanding idea to hold them all

your knowing which is one thousand cuts in a stone chiseling me out

and my knowing one gleaming stone that holds the deep ocean and expanding sky

this then, is how it can be

to learn to count stars and the passing of time

in hours, words, questions and answers and

the size of an idea by the weight of warm navigation

from 19 to 20.

x Tash