Enlighten Radio Presents Stop The Car!! Mark Dody, Erin Murphy, Matt Del Gusto, Joshua Frank, Meril Crabtree The Interstate existence is largely indifferent to human values. Leave it -- what has been left behind? Wednesdays 10 Am on player.enlightenradio.org Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case This Episode Recorded July 15, 2026 Heaven for Helen by Mark Doty Heaven for Helen Mark Doty 1953 Helen says heaven, for her, would be complete immersion in physical process, without self-consciousness to be the respiration of the grass, or ionized agitation just above the break of a wave, traffic in a sunflower's thousand golden rooms. Images of exchange, and of untrammeled nature. But if we're to become part of it all, won't our paradise also involve participation in being, say, diesel fuel, the impatience of trucks on August pavement, weird glow of service areas along the interstate at night? We'll be shiny pink egg cartons, and the thick treads of burst tires along the highways in Pennsylvania: a hell we've made to accompany the given: we will join our tiresome productions, things that want to be useless forever. But that's me talking. Helen would take the greatest pleasure in being a scrap of paper, if that's what there were to experience. Perhaps that's why she's a painter, finally: to practice disappearing into her scrupulous attention, an exacting rehearsal for the larger world of things it won't be easy to love. Helen I think will master it, though I may not. She has practiced a long time learning to see I have devoted myself to affirmation, when I should have kept my eyes on the ground. Our Blog Our Player Our Podcasts questions, comments: jcase4218@gmail.com
