HERE

31 January 2026

Grace Paley is best known for her short stories, but she started out as a poet. These poems are drawn from the end of her life, after she had left New York, and was living full time in Thetford, VT, with her husband Bob Nichols. I have always loved the lines about his “sweet explaining lips,” and her decision, on a melancholy morning, not to write a poem, but to make a pie instead.

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“Here” by Grace Paley (1922-2007)

Here I am in the garden laughing
an old woman with heavy breasts
and a nicely mapped face
how did this happen
well that’s who I wanted to be
at last.    a woman
in the old style     sitting
stout thighs apart under
a big skirt     grandchild sliding
on    off my lap    a pleasant
summer perspiration
that’s my old man across the yard
he’s talking to the meter reader
he’s telling him the world’s sad story
how electricity is oil or uranium
and so forth    I tell my grandson
run over to your grandpa ask him
to sit beside me for a minute    I 
am suddenly exhausted by my desire
to kiss his sweet explaining lips

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“The Poet's Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley (1922-2007)

I was going to write a poem
I made a pie instead    it took
about the same amount of time
of course the pie was a final
draft    a poem would have had some
distance to go     days and weeks and
much crumpled paper

the pie already had a talking
tumbling audience among small
trucks and a fire engine on
the kitchen floor

everybody will like this pie
it will have apples and cranberries
dried apricots in it.    many friends
will say     why in the world did you
make only one

this does not happen with poems

because of unreportable
sadnesses I decided to 
settle this morning for a re-
sponsive eatership   I do not
want to wait a week.   a year.   a
generation for the right
consumer to come along

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Write a poem that begins with the word “Here,” focusing on right here, right now. Or say something about your own “occasional alternatives.” What do you turn to when you can’t imagine an audience, and writing suddenly seems too much?

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World Enough & Time:
Writing & Meditation, Creativity & Slowing Down

For close to eight years, a small group of us have been meeting via Zoom one evening a week. Each session begins with a brief meditation, followed by a reading and discussion (Ada Limón, Jane Hirshfield, Ocean Vuong…) after which everyone writes for 25-30 minutes. How did that go? For the last fifteen minutes we listen to what each other has to say.

Thursday evenings: 6:15pm to 8:15pm EST via Zoom