Remember the Power of Poetry With This Poem, “June”
This June is like no other that we have experienced. Through quarantines and curfews, the toll of our current climate has been taxing—yet we remain optimistic that a better future is in store for us. As we work to create a healthy society for everyone, we must also take time to care for ourselves. We’d like to offer this poem as a break from the news cycle, a chance to enjoy the power of poetry.
This moving poem by award-winning poet Alex Dimitrov will remind you of the magic of Junes we have known. It highlights why it is important now more than ever to protect the diversity that has made the fabric of our society vibrant and irreplaceable.
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"June"
by Alex Dimitrov
There will never be more of summer than there is now.
Walking alone through Union Square I am carrying flowers and the first rosé to a party where I’m expected.
It’s Sunday and the trains run on time but today death feels so far, it’s impossible
to go underground. I would like to say something to everyone I see (an entire
city) but I’m unsure what it is yet.
Each time I leave my apartment there’s at least one person crying, reading, or shouting after a stranger anywhere along my commute.
It’s possible to be happy alone, I say out loud and to no one so it’s obvious, and now here in the middle of this poem.
Rarely have I felt more charmed than on Ninth Street, watching a woman
stop in the middle of the sidewalk to pull up her hair like it’s an emergency—and it is.
People do know they’re alive.
They hardly know what to do with themselves.
I almost want to invite her with me but I’ve passed and yes it’d be crazy
like trying to be a poet, trying to be anyone here.
How do you continue to love New York,
my friend who left for California asks me.
It’s awful in the summer and winter,
and spring and fall last maybe two weeks.
This is true. It’s all true, of course, like my preference for difficult men which I had until recently because at last, for one summer the only difficulty I’m willing to imagine is walking through this first humid day with my hands full, not at all peaceful but entirely possible and real.
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Stay well. We will come out of this June stronger, together.