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The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

1073: Great Question by Lisa Olstein

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

American Public Media

Arts, Performing Arts

4.81.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 March 2024

⏱️ 6 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today’s poem is Great Question by Lisa Olstein.


The Slowdown is your daily poetry ritual. In this episode, Major writes… “Why do we lean on love so much for sustenance? When passion dwindles to a set of burned twigs, where once there was a raging fire; it’s as though a theft has occurred, the result of which makes us homesick for ourselves.”


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

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey, it's Slowdown Producer Micah. What poems have helped you Slow Down, have made you stop and reflect.

0:07.0

We want you to send us your selections for a series of upcoming episodes.

0:12.0

Head to Slowdown Show.org. for a series of upcoming episodes.

0:12.5

Head to Slowdown Show.org

0:14.6

slash community to submit.

0:16.5

Or go to our Instagram at Slowdown Show

0:19.7

to find out more. I'm major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

0:50.1

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown. Recently, I watched a friend take to the stage to narrate her on again, off again relationship. The person who made them, in their words, starry-eyed and weak,

0:55.1

was the topic of a decade-plus-long drama condensed

0:59.3

into a five-minute act, which resulted in them getting out of town forever.

1:06.9

The workplace romance complicated matters too much, so she just left. This wasn't the Moth Radio Hour, but the Heartbreak Happy Hour in

1:19.6

Nashville. The audience stood with plastic cups of beer, knowingly nodding.

1:26.7

That there exists someone in our lives who can, without warning, just walk into a room and send out molecules into disarray is a familiar

1:39.0

and particular kind of blues.

1:42.2

The evening of stand-up comedy, storytelling, songs, and poetry left me in stitches, but mostly I felt in

1:51.0

my gut the distinct anguish of humans in love.

1:55.0

Why do we lean on love so much for sustenance?

1:59.0

When passion dwindles to a set of burnt twigs.

2:04.0

Where once there was a raging fire.

2:07.2

It's as though a theft has occurred,

2:10.6

the result of which makes us homesick for ourselves.

2:15.0

I find it difficult to accept that our predilection for acts of hankering

...

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