should i tell you there are two lemons on the table

Should I tell you there are two lemons on the table, the kind
grown in these regions. Taut and green and sour just enough
sweet to be forgiven. Not that they ask for any, being only
what they are. Unlike other things that need telling

For instance, the green ramekin with an apostle spoon 
beside a custom-made glass half filled with water the way
things should be. The mobile phone beside it, black
is quiet and the pen beside it, black, is still.

Other things need reminding. The clock to keep on running.
The ring around a finger, hers, to mean. The roads are long
and web-like and many. And this, a brief brush of wind.
She is passing and is leaving.

burning

there must be a reason why, valentine
why

they all share the same
patron 

Oh!  of lovers
love, epilepsy, and plague!

Eternal Enemies

when the poem about eternal enemies was written, it meant love and time.  how they can never seem to reconcile, except in marriage.  it was a wedding poem, "epithalamium" for isca and sebastian.  this, of course, written and read on a moment of suspension.  for the world-wise/world-weary knows, of course, there may be no eternal yet in marriage; this, of course, again, being conditional.



Epithalamium
             by Adam Zagajewski


Without silence there would be no music.
Life paired is doubtless more difficult
than solitary existence--
just as a boat on the open sea
with outstretched sails is trickier to steer
than the same boat drowsing at a dock, but schooners
after all are meant for wind and motion,
not idleness and impassive quiet.

A conversation continued through the years includes
hours of anxiety, anger, even hatred,
but also compassion, deep feeling.
Only in marriage do love and time,
eternal enemies, join forces.
Only love and time, when reconciled,
permit us to see other beings
in the enigmatic, complex essence,
unfolding slowly and certainly, like a new settlement
in a valley or among green hills.

It begins from one day only, from joy
and pledges, from the holy day of meeting,
which is like a moist grain;
then come the years of trial and labor,
sometimes despair, fierce revelation,
happiness and finally a great tree
with rich greenery grows over us,
casting its vast shadow.  Cares vanish in it.

often we forget our age

except when we run in attempt to catch that ride.  or see playground bars we know we could still lift our bodies in our minds.  when we see kids bemoan their teenage loves and cry "forever" and tellies say stay believing in your own heart.  when we hear someone say "eternity" and how no one could ever tear their love apart.  we remember.  the too many times and too many things we try to un-remember.  and how often we succeed, at times, to forget our age.  when she laughs finding you funny without your knowing in the middle of a conversation; or unconsciously takes your hand without a cue, in the middle of a mall, or a crowded station, or in a car, without so much as the setting of a dinner, candlelit or otherwise.  when you see her performing the feat of braiding her own hair in front of a mirror, hairpin tucked on lips, or at the end the night, just a plain schoolboy kiss, you forget your age.
  
and also except when you have to file those forms and fill the details birth date please and age please, thank you.  

beautiful things

some days are not for beautiful things.  no matter how blue and clear the sky, no matter a butterfly.  no matter a dog sleeping close at your feet.  the balmy breeze passing by