She rises from her soft
seat of enjoyment
puts aside her book and shakes
the glimmer from her gaze:
some falls into the rug, some
slips into the corners of her eyes.
This last amount goes into the kitchen
with her so that even after she
arrives,
bends over a cucumber and
begins to slice, she’s not entirely
about the business of slicing. Or
if she is about
the business of slicing
it is not a cucumber.
.
.
.
.MARYMARTHA
(originally posted July 2012)
Near 3:00 a.m.
the call comes
without fail when
somnolence limps
through darkness
down the hall
and back to bed.
Then elegantly
curling, hanging
on the wisps of drowse
the wordings come
perfect wordings
for the saying of what
never has been said.
Must remember this
a weary whisper
tells the feathers
of the comforter
but when the morning
comes, it is as if
the wordings never were.
.
.
They are not mean, but meaning to be kind,
the ones whose work it is to bring him here–
merely a job to do, to hold and steer
an old man who is frail, half-blind,
toward a sunny bench where he may find
companionship in leafy atmosphere–
perhaps a little bird to tweet some cheer
and take him out of his own mind.
Here, everything is new under the sun:
the spill of light climbs up a tree
a little breast of sand temples the ants
a chickadee bows like a tiny nun
upon a branch, to hear the pink soliloquy
of a wild rose, dressed for the dance.
All is circumstance.
Seated between mirth and agony
no longer wishing to foresee
no longer slave to memory
his ancientness, still as a garden gnome,
waits for whoever comes to fetch him home.
.
.
IN A GARDEN OF GIVENS
April is much too
late in March for snow
but I feel much more like I do
now than I did a while ago
for I’ve just seen a great movie–
don’t miss it if you possibly can–
it was like a flash in the dark
or a shot in the pan
and in three dimensions:
black and white and color,
you know, a casual affair
between a donut and a cruller?
The theme, I think, was LIFE
(but you really had to be there)
starring Beatrice Somebody
& Art Guesswho. (I wonder
who does her hair…and why).
Anyway, these two were like
twins, though one looked
more alike, and listen to this:
“they read no more that day.”
And if that doesn’t take your
day and make your cake,
right there I gave myself
to Art, just for art’s sake.
(I wrote this 35 years ago and take it out for an airing
now in honor of April Fool’s Day. The snowbanks
along the sides of my street are still five dirty feet high.)
—-The French author Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) said that to dream of
literary projects—even those one may never write—is to smoke enchanted cigarettes.
Ah, yes, Balzac, I am a smoker
of enchanted cigarettes, daydreaming
literary wonders I will never write.
Should we meet for a petit’ aperitif
some evening at Les Deux Magots
together we might watch our fragrant puffs
rise potently in cupolas of silken smoke.
Or am I thinking of another almost novel
someone almost wrote? Not cupolas but
parasols, I think—gossamer ethereals
above our heads. Was that your bright
idea or mine? Garçon! Another drink!
There’s time yet to convince those parasols
to be black bumbershoots in fog or
even morph to mushroom clouds.
We are too loud to listen to
a limit for our skies. Soon enough
a would-have-been becomes a never-was.
What never saw the light is no more
unto dust than many a blighted text
the western welkin proudly shone upon.
Allons, tonight let us to airy somethings
be enthralled. Just think if the abode of angels,
our firmament, had not been hatched at all.
.
.
ENCHANTED CIGARETTES
She rises from her soft
seat of enjoyment
puts aside her book and shakes
the glimmer from her gaze:
some falls into the rug, some
slips into the corners of her eyes.
This last amount goes into the kitchen
with her so that even after she
arrives,
bends over a cucumber and
begins to slice, she’s not entirely
about the business of slicing. Or
if she is about
the business of slicing
it is not a cucumber.
littleoldladywho.net 