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The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

1060: Perhaps

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

American Public Media

Arts, Performing Arts

4.81.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 February 2024

⏱️ 7 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today’s poem is Perhaps by Wen Yiduo, translated by Arthur Sze.


The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Today’s poem takes me to the ancient grounds of the imagination, and a cultivated wonder that brings us closer to its magic and possibility.”


Celebrate the power of poems with a gift to The Slowdown today. Every donation makes a difference: https://tinyurl.com/rjm4synp

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

0:07.0

And this is the slowdown.

0:20.0

My grandmother once told my aunt that one intersection in her neighborhood was haunted.

0:27.5

On her way home from the grocery store, she shifted a heavy brown bag to her left hip and noticed the driver.

0:35.0

A woman in her early 40s professionally dressed stopped at the corner,

0:41.0

uncontrollably crying. My grandmother wanted to reach through the

0:46.5

window to console the stranger, but thought better to get to the other side

0:51.5

before she became trapped in traffic.

0:55.7

As she crossed, she looked over her shoulder until the light changed to green. A week later, when crossing the same intersection, she saw a man in a

1:09.0

Madras shirt early 20s, shedding tears.

1:14.7

My grandmother hurried to the curb.

1:17.1

His windows were open to the summer day.

1:20.4

His forehead to the will, he sobbed audibly.

1:25.0

When the light changed, he abruptly drove off.

1:29.4

This was strange for sure, which gave my grandmother the theory that it must be the energy of the

1:36.2

corner.

1:38.4

The next morning Grandma convinced my aunt to see for themselves. They placed aluminum lawn chairs at the intersection

1:46.6

and sat together in big floppy gardening hats examining each vehicle.

1:52.4

The first car, a Subaru Outback, contained a family absorbed in their

1:58.6

individual activities. But as the car slowed to a stop, they each wept and shook in unison, as if in the throes of a solemn

2:09.4

funeral song, the father, the loudest of them all.

2:15.4

They were followed by a young doctor in Scrubs and her Yorkie, who let out yips. Then a priest in a collar. My grandmother believed they all

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