A Whisper of Storm (a pastiche)

Three days of rain             Early sunrises             Early darks

On this listless December         On this island of rain
There is a whisper of a storm not half an ocean away

Nights the beggars pretend not to beg by carolling
The city gates have opened         The strays have come to stay


                                          *  *  *


I drove all the way to your neighbourhood and found
You were not yet home         Your new wife        The one I haven't met

She answered the door and knew my name
She looked different from the last two I've known

What leads you 
one woman to another?  

"I just dropped by.  Friday and thought maybe a couple of beers."
I drove around town


                                          *  *  *


Finally at 65         G will be leaving for Spain            to retire
We threw a celebration for her leaving or for her life        both

T made quiche
And after everything        we all had tea

Of course nobody really talks about leaving


                                         *  *  *

And

Adam wrote to Eve
"I am breathless and anxious and sick with dread and desire."



















 

And, lovely, learn by going where to go

Bright early morning drizzle, a brown mug of freshly brewed local coffee, papers on desk by an open window.  Somewhere in the corner of the front yard, the planted tomatoes are sprouting.  Until the time to go to the still bustling city that tries to keep itself still, to take the morning slow...

The Waking

by Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.   

I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?   

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?   

God bless the Ground!   I shall walk softly there,   

And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?   

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do   

To you and me; so take the lively air,   

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.   

What falls away is always. And is near.   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   

I learn by going where I have to go.

The Patience of Ordinary Things

The Patience of Ordinary Things
by Pat Schneider

 

It is kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they're supposed to be.
I've been thnking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

origins

In discourse analysis, some things understood are no longer gestured at aloud.

This morning I talked about patterns.  Residing in the conscious, subconscious, unconscious.  The cosmos itself, a pattern.  Little wonder there in the world of ideas.

When, at today's end of day, l lost my temper over crew inefficiency, there must have been a pattern.  What did I say?  That age did not matter.

I come home and one of the dogs let out before closing the day, I hit.  Where did it come from?  This ugly hand, this very ugly head when I become taut as guitar string.  

I know:  in hiding is a very angry young man.  Where did he come from?  Why?
Tonight in bed, she heard my thoughts, as I walked around them, echo on the walls.  

Was I not harsh enough?  Some colleagues remarked, too considerate.  Lash someone if need to. What do I know, what do I know?  When the waters are calm and the guitar strings 

are loose are beautiful, I close my eyes.  The end of day.

about Now

Life has been quiet lately.  The writing too, quiet.  And it must have been months now since I   last sat and truly patiently waited for what must come to come and be written.  I wanted, needed, to go for another residency, a long stretch of timelessness to be able to listen to write.  The noise of paperwork from the university and the field has kept me farther and farther away, to a kind of tone-deafness...

at the end of the year

All is quiet tonight, when the day that had begun gentle in its tenderness of sun is finally over, ending quietly the year that has been another brief, beautiful in its momentariness.

It is a slow walk to what is seen, in the heart's fearful, faithful eye, an inevitable end.  But how beautiful this slow walk is, that had begun as a run to the sun.  And now all is quiet tonight.  For another year of slow, beautiful walk to the seen unseen.

what the sun says does not say

What the sun says does not say
the morning is something else entirely

How gold is the golden this 
morning of your birth, another year again

unfolding.