The April 2025 poem: Eternity
Eternity
We poets write toward eternity
Unpacking burdens and adversity
Despite the strife, we write into the light
Tumble through exquisite sunset dreams
Knit riddles with rhyme and embroider the scene
Tally up time on Route 66, count the winks of the moon
Care for the heart before grief breaks us too soon
Archive recollections, before they’re disposed
Salvage our souls, alchemize rainbow jewels more precious than gold.
I was reading a book about Emily Dickinson and her poems to put me in the mood to write this April National Poetry Month poem, thinking why we humans write. We read and write to find that immortality in storytelling and to express how much we aim to hold and transform.
West Hollywood has so much creative history and energy to magnetize me and others to come here and some of us make it home. I paired the poem with my photo of this lovely retro sculpture on Santa Monica Boulevard that helps to mark our famous Route 66, a road of possibility, that when you follow it all the way West, you land on the beaches to meet the sunset horizon. And I admire many sunsets by looking west and many moons by looking east from this boulevard and from our other iconic boulevard of Sunset. Something nostalgic and hopeful attaches to the heart when we hear songs and comments of how people “go west” to chase their dreams. Many of us dream chasers land here. We are more specific than the bigger mass of Hollywood, we are West Hollywood.
Especially in today’s world where we need sanctuary, West Hollywood is a safe haven for those of us who are different. A place to care for the heart, where we have an amazing library with books that other places have banned. Going further to celebrate our stories, West Hollywood has Drag Story Hour, the Mazer Lesbian Archives, the indie bookshop Book Soup, and other unique resources here that serve to treasure our diverse stories, what I see as our “rainbow jewels.”
This is a place I have lived longer than anywhere in my adult life, for many reasons. I am a proud citizen of this little sanctuary city, a place that feeds my creative soul and supports many others. We gather transplants, refugees from the L.A. fires and other crises, questioning queers, and other seekers that we should have our own Statue of Liberty of the West. Even for those not seeking sanctuary, people who live nearby in the Hollywood Hills, Laurel Canyon, Beverly Hills — or others who drive farther — they come here to shop, party, write, see art, get beauty, and dine. Whether visitors know it or not, they are breaking bread with dreams and the beautiful history of creativity and storytelling here. May our hopes and memories live on through poetry, for eternity.
Click play to hear the audio recording of the poem.
Happy National Poetry Month!