Don't Ask the Angels How They Fly

+ More links that made me look & linger

​Lately, one of my favorite poems keeps randomly showing up in my path.

Although Foster & Flourish isn’t a poetry newsletter, I’ve taken this poem’s reappearance as a sign to share it here with you alongside a small story and a simple wish inspired by all of it.

Also in this post, I’m sharing more curated links that made me look and linger.

Here’s the poem. It’s by Albert Huffstickler and there’s more about him below.

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Don't Ask the Angels How They Fly


Knowing there's only so much time,

I don't rejoice less but more.

Knowing how many things will now

not happen, I wish them Godspeed

and pass them on to someone

down the line. I honor my

regrets, the part of me that

never happened or happened wrong

and proceed on course though

the course is not known. Only

the end is known and some days

it's a comfort. We live on

love, whether it's there or

not and rejoice in it even in

its absence. If I had known,

I'd have come here better equipped—

but that's another one of those

things you can't change—as we

can't alter that part of us

that lives on memory, knowing

all the while that time is not

real and that what we are we

never were in the light of that

timeless place where we really

belong, have belonged always.

And what's left then is only

to bless it all in the light of

what we don't and will never

know or at least not here where

the light is only a shadow of

that light we almost see sometimes—

that light that's really home. — Albert Huffstickler

​​

I greatly admire Albert Huffstickler, the person and poet whom I am lucky to have once met in the 80’s on a balmy evening in Austin, Texas. On that same evening, I wiped away tears of awe as he read this poem to a large, silent crowd who listened breathlessly.

I can probably recite the words of this poem by heart (I’ve never tried) and yet every read-through feels like the first time. And every read gives me the feeling of being safely wrapped in the otherwise forbidding blanket of reality. The words are like a distillation of all the wisdom from every story ever told throughout time. I always feel set free even as I’m held within the soft curves of grace.

That evening in Austin I shook Mr. H's warm hand and said, probably nervously, that I'd shared this poem with "pretty much everyone I've ever loved." I thanked him, and he said, "Ah, well, thank YOU, then" and paused, watching me so closely as if witnessing the meaning beyond those five words land squarely into my hut (which is my head, heart and gut).

I've shared this poem and story with pretty much everyone I've ever loved. Some surely remember the words and those that have forgotten probably still embody the traces.

And now, Dear Reader, I share Mr. H’s words with you. Don’t ask the angels how they fly. Just take anything from the words that nourish you and wish the rest Godspeed as they’re passed on to someone down the line.

(Special thanks to

Poetic Outlaws

for being the most recent reminder of this poem and my small brief memory of the poet.)

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My last post’s curated links “that made me look and linger” were received so well. Thanks to all for your emails. Here is part two. It’s summer here in my part of the planet which feels like a delicious time to slow down and peruse pathways. So that’s what I’m doing and I’m sharing some of the things that made me look and linger.

• Summer (Un)Schooling Ideas by

  Austin Kleon

• This most recent episode of Radiolab is pure joy and fascination. Hello lesbian seagulls! And Happy Pride Month to ALL!

• And speaking of the sea, an underwater city of “gloomy octopuses” has been discovered.

• Yoga Nidra lovers and champion power-nappers might know this already—the first minutes of sleep is powerful medicine for creativity.

• A theory of why Zoom is so draining by

  L. M. Sacasas

• And a couple of good reads:

  • Just started reading Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America's Exercise Obsession — a very compelling cultural narrative by historian and fitness instructor, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela. Asks great questions about how to revolutionize fitness culture.

  • If you like Howard Zinn’s “People’s History of the United States” you might like Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World. Living in San Francisco for 20+ years, I thought I’d had enough Silicon Valley analysis until I realized all of it had been written from the perspective of power. Born and raised in Palo Alto, author Malcolm Harris pulls back the veil to reveal the wildness and color of the real Palo Alto behind the cybernetic curtain.

• “Uh, hello, (tap, tap) is this thing on??” Everything but the Girl finally has a new album. It’s only been 24 years of waiting. I’m listening to it right now.

With Love & Perusal,