After Work by Richard Jones

Poem of the Week, by Richard Jones

Posted on by alisonmcghee

Spots are still available in next month’s mini-session of our popular Write Together sessions, in which we gather on Zoom for an hour in the morning and evening and write quietly together from a guided prompt. July 17-19, 10 am and 6 pm Central time. Cost: $100. Please click here for all the details. I’d love to see you in the Zoom room. 

Last week I was walking with someone I love when we saw an old man trip and nearly fall. He dusted himself off, made sure his hat was on straight, and kept going, cane in hand.

My friend and I were both quiet. We didn’t look at each other. Let it go, Alison, I told myself. He’s fine. I imagined the old man on his way to his daughter’s house, his whole family waiting there, full of love. A story conjured up to keep the sadness at bay, to turn it into something else, to transcend it.

But it didn’t surprise me when my friend turned to me and said quietly, “If I keep thinking about that old man I’ll be sad for the rest of the week,” and I nodded, because we are alike. “It’s a curse to feel so much,” she said.

A curse, and a blessing.

After Work, by Richard Jones

Coming up from the subway
into the cool Manhattan evening,
I feel rough hands on my heart –
women in the market yelling
over rows of tomatoes and peppers,
old men sitting on a stoop playing cards,
cabbies cursing each other with fists
while the music of church bells
sails over the street,
and the father, angry and tired
after working all day,
embracing his little girl,
kissing her,
mi vida, mi corazon,
brushing the hair out of her eyes
so she can see.

​For more information on Richard Jones, please click here.

alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

Poem of the Week, by Richard Jones*

Posted on by alisonmcghee

Three spots still available in our January 8-13, 2024, Write Together session, which begins on Monday. I’d love to see you in this one hour, twice-daily workshop in which we all quietly write together from a guided prompt. $200, payable however you want. 

Whatever brain function places memory within the context of time is lacking in me, which means that something that happened twenty years ago could have happened last year. That is why every Saturday, when I find the right poem to send out, I check my Sent files to make sure I didn’t send it out just a few weeks ago. When I came to this one, which I’ve loved for many years because it feels like a tiny prayer of redemption, I was sure I’d sent it recently. But the only Richard Jones reference in any of my 200K+ emails was a note from my poetry-loving son in 2012, telling me about one of his professors in Chicago, a guy named Richard Jones, who was a poet whose work he thought I would like. Which goes to prove that the world is small, my son is awesome, and a beautiful poem transcends time.

After Work, by Richard Jones

Coming up from the subway
into the cool Manhattan evening,
I feel rough hands on my heart –
women in the market yelling
over rows of tomatoes and peppers,
old men sitting on a stoop playing cards,
cabbies cursing each other with fists
while the music of church bells
sails over the street,
and the father, angry and tired
after working all day,
embracing his little girl,
kissing her,
mi vida, mi corazon,
brushing the hair out of her eyes
so she can see.

Click here for more information about poet Richard Jones. After Work is from his collection The Blessing, from Copper Canyon Press. 

alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

*Note: this post is adapted from one that originally appeared in 2015.