Had a day when your impersonal world seemed
More personable than yourself? Wind blew hard
Through that wild beauty, the sky, and the creek
Could be heard nonetheless, the small birds, even the light
Could be heard to have said something nice. Nothing
Seemed to be bent on extinguishing anything singing,
And only my neurons insisted, kibitzing, sotto voce,
When no one noticed, when I wasn't paying attention myself,
On pulling out reams and bolts of old grievances to fluff
From dusty trunks, to consider, to stage shapeless costume
Dramas of swathed and cloaked memories mumming,
Debating imitation antique drawing room insults and victories
Until the whole thoughtless limbic, hormonal alert system,
Like a secondary-school false-alarm fire drill in the auditorium,
Fired up, and I woke up with a snort to my own nonsense again,
Scolding my thoughts to open the window, to notice the wind,
The light wrapped around them with intimate consideration
For our infinite, infantile wish for consolation, the world
Briefly resting its head softly against us, commiserating.
At evening when the cold blew through the canyons
And the deer haunted the highways, dead or alive,
I gripped the wheel of my compact, battered vehicle,
Half lyric, half shambles, joining my flat-throated tones
To the layers of murmuring, singing, and song,
To the hum of the engine, the thump of the wind,
The whoosh of the blood hammering hard at my ears,
The nightjar on the pine, the woodlark in the night,
All singing an old song of their own, once of mine,
Chorus scored for indifference, concern, and delight,
"There is no beginning or end, only the middle and nothing."
No comments:
Post a Comment