Jo Chern

Category: reflection

  • The Tiniest of Spiders in This Troubled Web

    The email from my massage therapist was brief. Their two woman massage clinic would be closing for two weeks during the Covid-19 outbreak. Massage, she pointed out, wasn’t compatible with “social distancing.” I can imagine them thinking as they made this decision “two weeks? four? two months?” because who can tell when, if ever, their…

  • Is Quitting Sometimes the Greater Good?

    As that old song goes “Should I stay or should I go?” For the last five years or so, I have been trying to return to the writing that I walked away from when I stopped teaching after twenty years. Twenty plus years of not writing, then I began again. Stops and starts; small steps…

  • Born Sad

      “She was always making jokes in class, kept us laughing all the time.” “I don’t know that I ever see her without a big smile.” “Some people are just born funny.” They’re not talking about me. Not that I don’t have a sense of humor that can range from silly to sarcastic to full-on…

  • Villanelle For “The Black Dog” (version 2)

      You’ll go through each motion, one by one, As dark night gives way to blacker day. You begin with “I’ll live,” as you’ve always done.   Pull the cord, raise the blinds, turn away from the sun. Step into the shower.  Coat the  pain in wet spray. You must go through each motion, one…

  • Not All Days Are Today

    Each goes to our own corners, This welcome May-warm April Sunday. My husband claims the bed, Supine, hands crossed over belly, Feet crossed at ankles, A double helix at rest. The old, skinny cat A circle in his heated bed. No day too warm for his frail bones, Head resting on a catnip mouse almost…

  • The Parable Series: My Kingdom for…

    My student recently reminded me of one of my favorite of the Tao parables: An old man had built up a very wealthy life, owning many fine horses, and one very fine son. One day the latch on the horse corral was left open–quite possibly by the very fine son, but we’ll let that go–and…

  • ‘Bash It Out Now; Tart It Up Later’

    ‘Bash It Out Now; Tart It Up Later’

    Whether or not that’s really what Nick Lowe used to tell the bands he was producing, it’s an excellent method of doing…well, just about anything. So here goes, bashing: I want to write. I want to write daily. I want to write as “the thing I do.” I don’t want to do this because I’m…

  • Sit, Black Dog, Sit

    My, I have been silent a long time, haven’t I? The image of depression as a black dog is usually that of a Baskerville-like hound, running at the heels, biting and snapping. And yet that seems terribly active for the depressed state, one where the sufferer is more likely to simply wait to be devoured…

  • Villanelle For The Black Dog (First Draft)

      You will go through each motion, one by one, As gentle night gives up to brutal day. And repeat, “I’ll live.” As you’ve always done.   Pull the cord of the blinds, turn your back to the sun, Step into the shower, dissolve in the spray. You will go through each motion, one by…

  • Why Write If You Can’t Write Anything Nice

    NaPoWriMo: Day 1. Oh, grand. I’m supposed to write a poem a day in April and I’m already out of ideas. But that never stopped me before. So I’m going to start with a short rhymed–abacadaea–piece about something I heard listening to an audio of a Alexander McCall Smith story the other day. Is it…