Sharon Mesmer
Welcome
A student asked, “When times of great difficulty visit us, how should we meet them?”
The teacher said, “Welcome.”
— Buddhist saying
Welcome subsiding of light
Welcome turning of the year
Welcome unexpected conclusion
Welcome abyss divulging its form
Welcome darkness that is another sun
Welcome all we are about to lose
Welcome all we are about to gain
Welcome sitting with all that is difficult
Welcome climbing the ladder of the spine
and drinking the breath in in a single sip
Welcome no thoughts
Welcome many thoughts
Welcome wound that never heals
Welcome event horizon where familiar things disappear
Welcome age of chaos
Welcome carefully choosing words so as to not tell everything because
certain things lose fragrance in air
Welcome loss of words — in a little while
there may be many
Welcome no words
Welcome many words
Welcome all that is difficult
Welcome all-consuming weariness
Welcome familiar joys tinged with bitterness
Welcome reversal
Welcome moment when something new appears
Welcome unknown frontier that forces us to become
more than we ever were before
Welcome all that is difficult
Welcome turning all mishaps into the path
Welcome driving all blames into one
Welcome being grateful to everyone
Welcome new poem that some will dismiss
Welcome new poem that some may misunderstand
Welcome new poem written quickly wherein I say
“Welcome, new future of which I am not afraid
for I have already looked into the abyss
and am prepared for light”
Welcome subsiding of light
Welcome returning of light
Welcome turning
Turning, turning
To light
Sharon Mesmer is the author of Greetings From My Girlie Leisure Place (Bloof Books, 2015), voted “Best of 2015” by Entropy. Previous poetry collections are Annoying Diabetic Bitch (Combo Books, 2008), The Virgin Formica (Hanging Loose Press, 2008), Vertigo Seeks Affinities (Belladonna Books, 2007), and Half Angel, Half Lunch (Hard Press, 1998). Four of her poems appear in Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology (second edition, 2013). Her fiction collections are Ma Vie à Yonago (Hachette Littératures, Paris, in French translation, 2005), In Ordinary Time (Hanging Loose Press, 2005) and The Empty Quarter (Hanging Loose Press, 2000). Her essays, reviews and interviews have appeared in the New York Times, Paris Review, American Poetry Review, and the Brooklyn Rail, among other places. She teaches in the undergraduate and graduate programs of New York University and The New School and lives in Brooklyn.
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