What Are the "Poem of the Moment" and "Quote of the Moment" on Ellen Steinbaum's Site?

On Ellen Steinbaum's site, "Poem of the Moment" and "Quote of the Moment" are two rotating featured sections on the home page. The poem currently shown is "The Intervening Day," and the quote currently shown is an Albert Einstein passage about interdependence. Both are short, self-contained pieces that change over time and that Steinbaum ties directly to the themes of her writing, especially her book Leavings.

Poem of the Moment

The current poem, "The Intervening Day," describes the single unmarked day that falls between a partner's birthday and a wedding anniversary. Steinbaum frames it as a day with "no ritual, just an everyday day," noticed mainly because it sits "sandwiched between the two momentous ones." The poem's closing idea is that nothing more is required of that day than "our simple gratitude for one more ordinary day."

Two things follow from this:

• The section is a showcase, not an archive. The site presents one poem at a time under the heading, so the featured piece is meant to be read as a current selection rather than a fixed page.
• The poem's subject matter matches the site's stated focus. On the home page, Steinbaum says Leavings is about living "not only in this moment, but also in the context of public and private moments of our past and of the future." A poem about an ordinary day between two marked occasions is a compact example of that idea.

Quote of the Moment

The current quote is attributed to Albert Einstein: "A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depends on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the measure as I have received and am still receiving."

Steinbaum introduces it with a note on how to read it. She says the language is one "we're fortunate in the 21st century to read as dated," but that its observation of "our interconnectedness" is not dated. She calls that observation the heart of Leavings and of much of her writing. In other words, the quote is chosen for its idea, not its wording, and the site says so explicitly.

How the Two Sections Work Together

Read side by side, the pair works as a small statement of the site's concerns: gratitude for an unremarkable day, and recognition that one's life depends on others' labor. Both are presented as current picks rather than permanent fixtures, so a returning visitor should expect the poem and the quote to differ from what is described here.

Where to Find Them

Both sections sit on the home page of ellensteinbaum.com, below the welcome text and the "Readings and Writings" links, and above the "Books" list. The same page also lists her five titles with prices (Leavings, This Next Tenderness, Brightness Falls, and Container Gardening at $18.00 each; Afterwords at $10.00) and credits the home page photo to James Dalsimer and the book trailer to A. Dalsimer. If you want to read the current poem or quote rather than this snapshot, go to the home page directly, since the selections rotate.