Ross Gay’s essays hold doors open

The mysterious and reclusive Chinese poet known as Cold Mountain once wrote, “The seasonal round never stops / one year ends and another begins / ten thousand things come and go” (trans. Red Pine). Those lines were most likely written in the ninth century. No one knows for sure when Cold Mountain actually lived and died. There’s some speculation that he never existed.

Those lines occurred to me while reading Indiana poet Ross Gay’s essays, or essayettes, as the author suggests, collected in “The Book of Delights.” Mr. Gay is neither mysterious nor reclusive. His poetry abounds with the sights and sounds of city life; his lines are full of encounters with other people whose company Mr. Gay truly enjoys.

His work relishes in the material world. He is particularly adept at composing lovely and insightful verse centered around gardening. The natural world as it exists in urban settings is a specialty of his. But Mr. Gay’s writing does carry a tang of the spiritual. The reader is made aware of the death and rot below the ground’s surface that is necessary to bring a sweetly fragrant flower to bloom.

Mr. Gay describes the seed from which “The Book of Delights” grew: “One day last July, feeling delighted and compelled to both wonder about and share that delight, I decided that it might feel nice, even useful, to write a daily essay about something delightful.”

Something that strikes me now, as I sit writing this in the dead of winter on a particularly rain-sloppy morning, is the presumption that Mr. Gay begins with: Every day something will delight me. A cursory glance at Twitter with my coffee suggests that Mr. Gay set himself a monumental task.

Perhaps it’s the winter that encourages a loss of perspective. The days have been both literally and figuratively dark. The anger, hatred and turmoil loose in this country right now could lead anyone down the path to hopelessness. Mr. Gay recognizes that his project “requires faith that delight will be with you daily.” That faith, which can be difficult to come by even under the best of circumstances, is what I return to Mr. Gay’s work again and again to bask in. His latest collection of poetry was titled “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude” after all.

These essays range about taking in everything from high-fives from strangers to the old Kid ’n Play movie “House Party” to listening to the singer Donny Hathaway to hummingbirds and public toilets.

Lest you think these essays are all airy and silly and hold no truck with the grind of the so-called real world, keep in mind that Mr. Gay’s garden is concerned just as much with death as it is with pretty flowers. Most of this collection was written in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, the weight of which applies pressure to the search for delight. There are tragic deaths, illnesses, racism and horror in these pages. Paying attention requires a deep focus lens; nothing can be ignored in favor of simple bliss.

What is gained from this acute watchfulness? If not wisdom, then at least a certain clarity. Let’s call it faith rewarded. Or, as Mr. Gay surmises, “Holding doors open. Offering elbows at crosswalks. Letting someone else go first. Helping with the heavy bags. Reaching what’s too high, or what’s been dropped. Pulling someone back to their feet. Stopping at the car wreck, at the struck dog .... This caretaking is our default mode and it’s always a lie that convinces us to act or believe otherwise. Always.”

Ross Gay will read from “The Book of Delights” from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Friday at the City of Asylum, North Side. The program also will feature Saretta Morgan, the inaugural CAAPP (Center for African American Poetry & Poetics) City of Asylum resident. Admission is free.

Kristofer Collins is the books editor for Pittsburgh Magazine. He lives in Stanton Heights with his wife and son.