Help From Birds

I read Shelf Awareness Pro every day to keep up with the news from the book world. Lately it’s equal parts heartening and disheartening. This morning there was an obituary for Molly Brodak, a poet and author of a memoir about growing up with a father who robbed banks to pay his debts. The obit included a poem from Brodak that seemed just right for today so here’s an excerpt below. I had terrible dreams .last night filled with crime and sadness, fueled, no doubt, by anxiety about the virus, so the poem was helpful. Maybe it will be helpful to you.

An excerpt from Molly Brodak’s poem “In the Morning, Before Anything Bad Happens“:

I know there is a river somewhere,
lit, fragrant, golden mist, all that,
whose irrepressible birds

can’t believe their luck this morning
and every morning.

I let them riot
in my mind a few minutes more
before the news comes.