“Glass Jars”: a poem

Glass Jars

I have seventeen glass jars

stored in a cupboard with

flashes of color

from olive and sundried tomato labels

and the day’s light refracted.

When I cannot sleep

I gently take one off the shelf

and slowly raise it to my mouth,

our lips touching, both cold,

as I whisper the fear

that keeps me awake.

Then I quickly screw the lid on

before it slips out and back

into the tender places in my mind.

The jars have no labels

but I can tell them apart

by their weight in my hand,

the heft of a fear held inside.

My prayer has become

that the earth never shakes so much

that these crash to the ground,

shattering into a thousand pieces

with all the fears released.

There must be a better way

to do this.

–Stuart Higginbotham

This poem came in yesterday while I was reading Mary Oliver’s Upstream once again. Her collection of essays has found a place on my list of books I read once a year, next to Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, Rilke’s Book of Hours (the Barrows/Macy translation) as well as Letters to a Young Poet, and a few others.

Mary Oliver constantly calls us to pay attention (and to be astonished). She wrote from her own deep searching, gathering the notes she took on scraps of paper while walking and forming them into phrases that feel like spells against despair.

I think that is what came to me while I was reading her. Perhaps that is what cracked the door enough for my muse to slip through: that it is so easy these days to give into despair, to be swallowed by fear. And, or but, there is something deeper that I can hear when I place my ear to the earth. Fear has a certain gravity to it, and the particular energy that resists it can feel so subtle sometimes—but it is essential. And it is fierce.

Rilke knew this too, of course, and he took the time to write back to Mr. Kappus to encourage him as he yearned to get a surer footing in his writing. What Rilke describes as the vocation of the artist is, of course, our common human vocation.

To be an artist means not to count or recon but to ripen like the tree that does not force its sap and, trustingly, stands through the storms of spring without fear that summer will not come. It will come. But it comes only to the patient ones, who stand there with eternity stretching around them, quiet, vast, and free of worry. I learn this every day, learn it amid struggle, for which I am thankful. Patience is all! (Letters to a Young Poet, Barrows/Macy trans.).

The great masters all have something to say about being aware of our fears. Of course we need to be aware of them, but we must always resist yielding to them. To be human is to be aware, to dare to name, to yield to what cannot be named, to trust, and to hope. There is a light that shines still—and always.

Yes, fear seems so thick these days you can taste it in the air. And there is a special breed of people who seem to know just how to turn the dials to raise our fears—and then leverage them for their own profit. Ever has this been the case. I need to guard my heart so I can stay grounded, so I keep my distance from the news, reading the headlines through my fingers.

So, this poem came through and I jotted it down even as I continue to wrestle with my own fears. What do I do with them?

I’ll keep wondering and listening.

Blessings, always,

Stuart

The Eve of Epiphany, 2025