April 3, 2023
Audio
Aches, A Quartet
By Ricky Ray
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Aches, A Quartet
By Ricky Ray
Resilience
I shift and shift,
shift and shift in search
of comfort,
knowing there's no such thing.
God
There's something about
being alive
that makes us cry out for help.
Ruin
Every day I thank the Earth
for ruining my body
that I might know something
of the ruin we inflict upon hers.
(Dis)ability
Some days,
my body is so beautiful,
I can’t believe I get to live here.
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Ricky Ray
Ricky Ray (he/him) is a disabled poet, essayist and eco-mystic who lives with his wife and his old brown dog in the old green hills of the Hudson Valley. He is the author of three books of poetry: Fealty; Quiet, Grit, Glory; and The Sound of the Earth Singing to Herself, a finalist for the Laurel Prize. He was educated at Columbia University and Bennington College, and he lectures on poetry, animism and integral ecology. His writing appears widely in periodicals and anthologies, including The American Scholar, Waxwing, Salamander and The Moth. He's currently writing a book on the story of the Earth as our source, being and home, an excerpt from which was longlisted for the Nature Chronicles Prize. He travels, virtually, at rickyray.earth.
You can follow him on Twitter: @rickyraypoet or Instagram: @rickyraypoet.
Image Description: Ricky Ray (he/him), a smiling, middle-aged man in a brown v-neck sweater, light-teal t-shirt, glasses and a Zoo York beanie, next to his Chocolate Lab / Irish Setter mix, Addie, her head upturned toward his in affection, both of them washed in afternoon light, with a blurred tree’s limbs fanning out like feathers behind them.