Some soft poems

Girl

Girl sits near Homer stroking Cupid

Her head clutched by knees, her eyes looking at darkness of her sweatpant’d lap.

Too exhausted to fight gravity today (I know it) and doesn’t want to let Earth’s wetness tickle her back

or soil her sweatpants?

Or too exhausted to fight the other gravity, the one that comes with birth.

She argues with the day, argues with her boyfriend, argues with herself

but relents by looking up to let the bright blurry blue sky soak her vision.

Captured by the grass she is—the others won’t enter her,

Because in this moment, she might think she is safe. 

The End of Things

It always rains at the end of things.

Winds blow when we reunite,

Ignite, to heat but burn,

Comforting mellow gazes.

These winds that can only induce passion tickle passion’s sufferers.

The gray Earth, replenished by rains,

blown by winds, scorched by fire, and soaked again.

Apple Weekend

The kids in the meadow drape themselves over each other

And the cows across the way wander alone to healthier grass tufts

Their difficulties are in surviving

Ours are in thriving

Mortality

It is true, I am not that old. By what standard? I am not talking about the short-lifed ancients nor even the tragedies of third-world living. Someone close to me once said that she never thought she'd live to be over 40. Another friend told me he hoped he never did. 

But I ain't middle-aged for me. I will say that I am scared of death. And in the past few weeks, I have been thus graced--with it, with death--not as if it has been in front of me, but that it has been singing to me in my ear. 

Dreams, visions, thoughts. Unwanted Kafkian fantasies of oblivious condemnation, flashbacks to driving into trees at top speeds (these times sans seatbelt), musings (no, no, this material is unsuitable for words of flighty connotation!), more like ghosts, coming to me and showing me my family at my grave. 

And films--why not mention them? The Thin Red Line, the Descendants, The Music Never Stopped...all showing me that death is real. As if I didn't already know? Well, why should I? I have been close, lucky, at times, and of course turned on the news, and even known people who have passed on, people I cared for, even loved....but I have a certain distance from death, let's call it an unfamiliarity. It is that thing that you think doesn't happen to people like us. 

And moments, moments of physical sluggishness, unknown sluggishness to this 22 year old body, sluggishness and achiness and just plain bad health foreign to my boyish conception of myself of 6 years past.  I am in my prime! Or has it passed?

There is no need to be silly. I am at the apex of fortitude, virility, and stamina--at least biologically speaking...then why doth the body, the mind, protest so much?

Being here, or there, well here, yes, you know, I am temporarily a misfit. For I am reinserted into the environment of 16 year old Nicholas. And? In this environment, nothing has changed...but the mind is a precious thing to taste. I am thus duped: the current mind of me mine your humble narrator is being confronted with assimilation attempts from teenage Nicky. And the feeling, folks, really, is, not explainable, or in, explicable, if, you will. 

There is no realization, no lesson. I am still scared of death. Still don't want to die. Still feel uneasy with his (death's) recent flirtations--especially because they are so subtle, but so internal. Myself sneaking myself right past--no, into--my self. 


Ah, but alas...of course there is resolution! Tension...tension, tension, tensionnnnn....AND....release. How opportune these graces these blazes seem to be, are. But really, of course, now is as good a time as any, yes. For no time is perfect, but they all are--because, constructed as such, we must familiarize ourselves with what is to come! It is all around us...but here, folks, here, is an instance of it coming in. And does it come from outside? No. This is how we are made. In from within. 


And there you have it. The sadder but wiser girl for me, is me--and all that much happier for my wisdom, for though the acquisition of my knowledge has been passive (here), I actively choose to not only retain it--but let it fester (No! Too robust! Let us defer to "prosper"--can't we leave with smiles?).