My name is Podrigotuma and when I turned 40, I kind of went through a midlife crisis

and I was surprised I'd never cared too much about what age I was, but somehow

40 landed on me with a strangeness and I couldn't write upon for months and

that was such a distress because normally that's what I turned it to figure out

what I'm feeling. Most of the time I feel like the page knows what I feel better

than what I do. Not having that was a deep grief. When months later I was at the

beginning of a meeting. I was leading the meeting and I said to everybody,

oh can we all just spend a bit of time reflecting because I poem landed for me

and I needed to capture it and I wrote a poem that brought language back to me

in a new way.

Transformation by Adam Zagieewski translated by Claire Kavanaugh. I haven't

written a single poem in months. I've lived humbly reading the paper, pondering

the riddle of power and the reasons for obedience. I've watched sunsets, crimson,

anxious. I've heard the birds grow quiet and night's muteness. I've seen

sunflowers dangling their heads at dusk as if a careless hangman had gone

strolling through the gardens. September's sweet dusk gathered on the

windowsill and lizards hid in the bends of walls. I've taken long walks,

craving one thing only, lightning, transformation, you. I love this poem, the

first time I read it was when I decided that I was going to read through

everything in Adam Zagieewski's English translations all done by Claire Kavanaugh.

This is in his first book in English, Mysticism for Beginners. That you at the end

have taken long walks, craving one thing only and then he mentions three things,

...