by Matthew Zapruder<\/p>\n
All day I’ve felt today is a holiday,
\nbut the calendar is blank.
\nMaybe its Lamp Day. There is
\none very small one I love
\nso much I have taken it everywhere,
\neven with its loose switch.
\nOn its porcelain shade are painted
\ntiny red flowers, cleary
\nby someone whose careful
\nhand we will never know.
\nBecause its Lamp Day I’m trying
\nto remember where I got it,
\nmaybe it was waiting for me
\nin the house on Summer Street
\nI moved into almost exactly
\n17 years ago.\u00a0 I think
\nwithout thinking I just picked it
\nup from the floor and put it
\non my desk and plugged
\nit into the socket and already
\nI was working.\u00a0 So much
\nsince that moment has happened.
\nOn Lamp Day we try
\nnot dreamily but systematically
\nto remember it all.\u00a0 I do it
\nby thinking about the hidden
\nreasons I love something
\nsmall. When you take
\na series of careful steps
\nto solve a complex problem,
\nmathematicians call it an algorithm.
\nIt’s like moving through
\na series of rooms, each with
\ntwo doors, you must choose one,
\nyou can’t go back. I begin
\nby sitting on a bench in the sun
\non September 21st thinking
\nall the walks I have taken
\nin all the cities I have chosen
\nto live in or visit with loved ones
\nand alone make a sunlit
\nand rainy map no one
\nwill ever be able to hold.
\nIs this important?\u00a0 Yes and no.
\nNow I am staring
\nat clean metal girders.
\nPeople keep walking past
\na hotel, its bright
\nglass calmly reflecting
\neverything bad and good.
\nBlue boots.\u00a0 Bright glass.
\nGuests in this moment. A child
\nthrough the puddles steps
\nexuberant, clearly feeling the power.
\nI am plugged in.\u00a0 I am calm.
\nLamp Day has a name.
\nJust like this cup
\nthat has somehow drifted
\ninto my life, and towards which
\nsometimes for its own reasons
\nmy hand drifts in turn.
\nUpon it is written the single
\nword Omaha.<\/p>\n
–Read at St. Lydia’s on October 24<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Matthew Zapruder All day I’ve felt today is a holiday, but the calendar is blank. Maybe its Lamp Day. There is one very small one I love so much I have taken it everywhere, even with its loose switch. On its porcelain shade are painted tiny red flowers, cleary by someone whose careful hand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":344,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions\/344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}