I'm looking out at the sky, the dark branches of the maple tree, the brick facades of the houses between Lexington and Park. I'm drinking coffee and mostly not listening to the radio. It's just voices coming from the kitchen. Bad news and more bad news.
When I was young, I studied poetry at Hunter College with the poet and feminist Audre Lorde. I had no idea who she was at the time and she wasn't who she would be either. She was already a force though. (She let me present my songs as poems, I remember. Some of those songs ended up on my first record, Shelter.) She used to say that you shouldn't eat while listening to the news. I'm not sure if her recommendation was based on the idea that it would make you sick or, rather, diminish the gravity of what you were hearing. News of war and other killing should not be accompanied by a sandwich. It seems obvious now. The terrible state of things gets in even if you try not to listen to it.