new year

New Year’s Resolution

~ Susan Knoppow ~ Leave a comment

Let’s not pretend any of this has been easy.

I am not going to write the “This is not normal” blog or the “What the hell is happening to our country?” blog or the “Let’s band together against tyranny” blog. I am only going to say this: Other than escaping from burning buildings, nothing good ever happens when we act out of fear.

I have told my children that many times. And I am afraid. Very afraid. Am I as afraid as those workers who don’t have the luxury of worrying about my reproductive rights because they’re too busy figuring out how to feed their children? Am I as afraid as the people who thought they lived in a Christian country? I can’t be sure. I only know I Related imagehave never felt this scared to be an American. Continue reading →

Friday Poem: January 1

~ Susan Knoppow ~ Leave a comment

January 1https://i0.wp.com/i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/553/757/bce.png

I would post this
with a photo of a kitten
in a party hat: Happy New Year

to my friends who celebrate
My version of Happy                                     
Joyful                           Merry                            

to my friends who celebrate, and to those
who don’t, ignore this post, ignore
this message, this meme. My children

are schooling me in memes
over dinner, and I’m sort of getting it –
like existentialism or containment –

high school terms I grasped well enough
to pass the tests, but which I couldn’t define
even then

FullSizeRender

Here are things I know –
repeatable, shorthand:
Your hand on my back at 2 am

when I cannot sleep…
The Purple Fiddle coffee mug
drying on the sill…

Half a pot of steel cut oats…
Snow, light as feathers
beyond the bow window