On “More in Time for Ted Kooser” by James Crews
By Brad Aaron Modlin
Welcome to Poets on the Plains. I’m Brad Aaron Modlin.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes before I log in to social media, I have to ask myself, Am I ready for this? Scrolling through can bring distraction, bad news, and busyness, and all the ways we’re encouraged to compare ourselves with others or to compete.
Lucky for me, I follow this poet, James Crews, online. He is a writer of practice and hope—someone who makes writing a habit and often shares his poetry online. His work is the opposite of social media. Rather than distraction, it invites focus, pause. Rather than quick, shouted answers, it responds to questions with quiet thoughts. As he notes in one poem about grief, even if new technology can supply automated responses, sometimes what we need is a human beside us acknowledging they don’t have words.
Today’s poem is about connection—the kind we may seek on social media but not quite find. Two people thousands of miles apart sharing an experience. The poem opens talking about sheltering in place, so the poem presumably is set during the pandemic, but “Each of us already knows how to shelter/ in place”—these people are familiar with staying put, with finding comfort nearby. What can we do in scary or new times? What we’ve been training for: go for a walk, write to a friend.
In this case, the friend is the celebrated Nebraskan poet Ted Kooser, a mentor of James’s from his time living in Lincoln. And though James now lives in Vermont, he can trust his dear friend is still following his good habit of observing the plants and hearing nature. Maybe they’re each going for their walk in the same hour. In a time of isolation, there’s togetherness.
When James and Ted write—and here James makes the familiar strange—telling us that email “[traces] unseen paths on the air”—Ted closes with More in time.
This poem subtly alludes to danger—not only the pandemic but the question of Will there be more in time? Mortality is a fact. Yes, the poem says, there will be more in time and there will be more inside of time. Our short lives last longer if we slow down. It’s a lesson this mentor has taught and keeps teaching: “I pay attention because of you…I pause to listen.”
If we listen, even within times of danger, we can take care of others. Such as turtles, who even though they are always in their armored shells, therefore always in their homes, sheltering in place, still benefit from those who pay attention and look out for them.
More in Time
for Ted Kooser
Each of us already knows how to shelter
in place, exchanging messages
from our respective villages, our words
tracing unseen paths on the air
from Nebraska to Vermont and back.
I like to think of you stepping out
on the dirt road you walk each day
at the same time I begin to walk mine,
paying close attention because of you
to black-eyed Susans nodding
their yellow heads in a nearby field,
and the rustle of maples above,
sending down a second rain from
the tips of leaves, having saved a small
kiss of water for the very instant
I passed under to receive that blessing.
And I think of how you often end
your emails with the same promise—
More in time—though I can’t help
reading it as another of your teachings,
that there will be so much more
delight in my days, hours, and minutes
if I learn to pause, for instance,
by the side of the road and listen
to the scraping of a painted turtle’s
clawed feet plodding across
loose gravel to the reach the creek,
Used with Permission
James Crews is the author of Turning Toward Grief: Reflections on Life, Loss & Appreciation, and the editor of the poetry anthologies, The Wonder of Small Things, The Path to Kindness, and How to Love the World, which has sold nearly 100,000 copies. James lives with his husband on forty rocky acres in Vermont that they are restoring to a habitat for pollinators and native species. For more information, and to sign up for free weekly poems, visit: jamescrews.net
This is Poets on the Plains. Thanks for enjoying this poem with me. I’m Brad Aaron Modlin, representing Nebraska, a good place for paying attention.
POETS ON THE PLAINS HOST
Brad Aaron Modlin has served for eight years as The Reynolds Endowed Chair of Poetry/Associate Professor at University of Nebraska, Kearney, teaching undergrads & in the online grad program. His book Everyone at This Party Has Two Names and his forthcoming No Earth But This are available from Black Lawrence Press. Work has appeared in The Pushcart Prize; Prairie Schooner; Brevity; The Slowdown; The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; and as the premier episode of Poetry Unbound. Also, orchestral scores, Australian art galleries, Brooklyn public art, & his neighbor’s refrigerator. He has received support from Sewanee, Banff, & the Nebraska Arts Council. He often writes about hope or embarrassment because he believes in human goodness & is very clumsy at the gym. https://www.bradaaronmodlin.com/
FEATURED POET
James Crews is the author of Turning Toward Grief: Reflections on Life, Loss & Appreciation, Breathing Room: Poems of Rest & Retreat, and editor of several bestselling poetry anthologies, including The Wonder of Small Things (winner of the New England Book Award), The Path to Kindness (winner of the Nautilus Award), and How to Love the World, which has sold nearly 100,000 copies. He has been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, in People Magazine, The Boston Globe, The New York Times Magazine, The Sun Magazine, and The Washington Post. James lives with his husband on forty rocky acres in Vermont that they are restoring to a habitat for pollinators and native species. For more information, and to sign up for free weekly poems and reflections, visit: jamescrews.net
