Stuck Between Starshine and Clay
March 27, 2026
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How to soften despair in an era of chaos
A five-legged, faceless, spider-like alien, Rocky became a pop-culture icon within days of his Hollywood introduction to America – a sidekick some movie viewers say they'd “take a bullet for.” As someone who saw the flick yesterday, I say, “Just shoot me.”
Rocky (pictured above) stars in the new sci-fi flick, “Project Hail Mary,” the highest-grossing movie opening of 2026, with a worldwide take already totaling $157.3 million during its first week.
Have we lost all sense?
No. it’s not us to blame for our headlong rush toward escapism. It’s the non-stop stress, anxiety, and emotional trauma afflicting us wherever we turn.
Our screens are tending toward wall-to-wall video reports of combatants “blowing stuff up.” No mention of the concern that the “stuff” being blown up includes human beings – most of them innocent civilians just like us, who want no part of what’s going on.
Then there’s the price of gasoline, and the price groceries, and the price of . . . .
During World War II, audiences flocked to movies that helped them forget – at least for a few hours – their ration books, air-raid drills, and casualty counts.
If you didn’t know: Bambi was born in 1942, the height of the war.
One way to soften our despair is to engage in doing things that give us a sense of accomplishment and completion, writes poet James Crews.
“At a time of chaos and uncertainty, what is most medicinal may be for us to control the flow of our attention. When we are talking with a good friend on the phone, raking the yard, or watching a bird cross from tree branch to feeder, we give ourselves the gift of inner space and the kind of deep stillness that seems extinct these days.”
Inconsequential, perhaps, but essential. Because according to poet Mary Oliver, paying attention is akin to devotion – a kind of praying. She writes:
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.I do know how to pay attention, how to fall downinto the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,which is what I have been doing all day.Tell me, what else should I have done?
Lucille Clifton was another poet who summoned us to persist in the face of our personal challenges – in her case, being black, female, and poor.
In what is perhaps her most famous poem, she pictures our current dilemma as being stuck between the starshine of noble aspirations and the clay of corrupt governance that stomps our craved nobility into the ground. She writes:
. . . i had no model.born in babylonboth nonwhite and womanwhat did i see to be except myself?i made it uphere on this bridge betweenstarshine and clay,my one hand holding tightmy other hand; come celebratewith me that everydaysomething has tried to kill meand has failed.
She defined her life as a daily call to survive against a world out to erase her. She answered by insisting on simply being. On persisting.