the most beautiful thing in my life

Poem by Rohee Dholakia

​​This poem
eagerly waiting to prise
out of my conscious-
ness like the first time
 
we met and decided
                                 	this was it—
a halcyon time
our broken pieces making a full
                  	puzzle

But  today
 
I need to brush my teeth, make our breakfast.
Gilbert asks, “what is the most beautiful thing in your life?”
and I’d say you if you had time, language and the loss of it
is all I have.
 
I swish back into the kitchen
and wave at the time slipping
away
      	my voice muffled by the
tasks              	of 	the  	day
 
The day
is all I have—
 
the day dredging my opalescent life away
the day lost in a ravine of choices
the day blighted by “what to make?”
 
I mold my life into little
fr ag me nt s  of time
           	like clay
fertile clay keeping memories              
                                        	warm
                            	fuzzy
              	alive
To write is the most beautiful
thing in my life
whilst                            	life
                                 	slithers 
                                                 	away.

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editor's note

Volume 09

clay | chlorophyll | crimson

Grass is green where you water it. LC’s words float along over Misch’s guitar. It’s a phrase that feels so obvious, and I’m sure those who tend to gardens know this more than most, but it seems to land more than before. The impact noticeable, memorable, echoing through my being. Perhaps we’re ingrained to think it’s greener elsewhere. This patch is the problem and not whether we’re watering it. The key is in the watering. How we go about this practice is what defines our patch of grass. No matter where we go, our patch is, perhaps, the same. Some attributes and characteristics have been changed but the essence is the same: Us.

Stepping into Volume 09 of imprint, marks our third year. I am learning that this patch of green that we have been tending to for the last several years will mould, shift, and sculpt. This depends on how we water it and allow it to take its own shape. It has already happened in wonderfully unexpected ways. There is only so much structure or shape we can predetermine. Beyond that, it will absorb what it needs and reject all that is unnecessary. And perhaps, in this practice, we are changed. Our grass is watered as we water that of our writing, our image making, our practice, our magazine.

From light to dark, rigid to supple, new to old, there is so much in between that is bright and vibrant and unexpected. The practice of our magazine has focused on being open to what we receive; being open to deeply listening to what is shared; being open to work taking us to new journeys. This volume, and this year, will be no different. We will continue tending to it as we have done, learning along the way, from past seasons and present ones.

And yet, I know it will be entirely different.
But still.
It will be watered.