The Possibilities Project - A #lockdown #poem

Possibilities      by Jane Bloomfield

I prefer bubble baths

to lockdown bubbles

I prefer wholemeal sourdough

toasted the next day

I prefer butter cold and sliceable

I prefer to stew apples I have grown

I prefer autumn’s gold leaves to summer’s brown grasses

I prefer loose leaf tea brewed strong in a small silver pot

I prefer my hair turning white than paying in to disguise

I prefer all my three children at home

even though two have left home already

I prefer walks alone with my thoughts and my dog by the river

I prefer getting puffed walking up hill than doing squats in a gym

I prefer native bird song to weedblowers, chainsaws or diggers

I prefer reading the book before seeing the movie

I prefer having an appetite before I cook dinner

I prefer sleeping long and deep than being disturbed

I prefer dreams vivid enough to remember

even those that unsettle

I prefer being kind and receiving kindness back

I prefer referring to sales assistants’ name badges, ‘Thank you, Casey.’

I prefer not to walk under ladders or stand on the crack

I prefer candles when the dusk falls to night

I prefer the definition of winter evenings to the endless southern summer nights

I prefer weeding to mulching

I prefer hanging out the washing to folding it

I prefer galloping my horse uphill than down

I prefer being on the bottom than being on top

I prefer tomato soup fresh from a can

I prefer that we all be good humans

I prefer to hope

Thanks to Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature for this video of yours truly reading the above!

The Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature Possibilities Project was run during the 2020 #lockdown with Otago poet, Liz Breslin (inspired by her Krakow residency.) It invited local writers to pen their response to Polish poet, Wislawa Szymborksa's poem 'Possibilities' :

Possibilities 

I prefer movies. 

I prefer cats. 

I prefer the oaks along the Warta. 

I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky. 

I prefer myself liking people 

to myself loving mankind. 

I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case. 

I prefer the colour green. 

I prefer not to maintain 

that reason is to blame for everything. 

I prefer exceptions. 

I prefer to leave early. 

I prefer talking to doctors about something else. 

I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations. 

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems 

to the absurdity of not writing poems. 

I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries 

that can be celebrated every day. 

I prefer moralists 

who promise me nothing. 

I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind. 

I prefer the earth in civvies. 

I prefer conquered to conquering countries. 

I prefer having some reservations. 

I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order. 

I prefer Grimms’ fairy tales to the newspapers’ front pages. 

I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves. 

I prefer dogs with uncropped tails. 

I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark. 

I prefer desk drawers. 

I prefer many things that I haven’t mentioned here 

to many things I’ve also left unsaid. 

I prefer zeroes on the loose 

to those lined up behind a cipher. 

I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars. 

I prefer to knock on wood. 

I prefer not to ask how much longer and when. 

I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility 

that existence has its own reason for being.       (c) Wisława Szymborska, 1997