Leatha Kendrick | Rattle: Poetry

Leatha Kendrick

YOUR FEAR

Now ask yourself—who might it serve that you

would grow downhearted? What do you choose

to see? What will your seeing make? The “news”

selected and relayed, mirrored and soon

a billion times its weight, weighs on the mind

that seeks it out. What is the new? The breath

just drawn, the thought not yet enfleshed, the kind

word being said, the stars that press unseen

overhead. “It is the unforeseen

upon which,” Poe said, “we must calculate

most largely.” Impossible to separate

misery and joy—the living edge of mystery.

Time’s unfolding, dauntless, holds you dear.

The universe has no need of your fear.

—from Poets Respond
December 23, 2018

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Leatha Kendrick: “Like many others, I have distanced myself from the 24-hour news cycle. Last week here in Lexington, Kentucky, reader and writers celebrated Thomas Merton’s life with a reading from his works. Merton, who died in 1968, lived in Kentucky at the Abbey of Gesthemani and had many friends among Kentucky writers including Wendell Berry (one of my teachers and mentors). As I listened to again Merton’s clarity about what divides us, I realized he could have been writing about today. As the Vietnam War intensified, Merton saw the opportunities for distortion and manipulation inherent in television reporting. He claimed to have only watched television twice in his life. His words made me ask myself again, ‘What do we gain from the 24-hour news cycle? What is it selling, if not fear? And for who’s benefit?’” (web)