When brutalities of day
give way
to candlelight of moon
do we find ease
and breathe
stillness?
Or do we ask
is it mere mask
for predator
conspirator
and illness?
Those of us who try to write struggle to find words for the anguish. Maybe there are none.
My limber neighbor
my Ansel Adams tree
turned its leaves
and shushed at me
bucking clouds
pugnaciously
all a-whoosh
and restlessly
churning, bobbing
fricatively
I stood as tree whisperer
wannabe.
A pensée for your hail
a pensée for farewell
the pensée at the threshold
jacquard’d sentinel.
Morning sun
in autumn slants
reveals my dust-fest
extravagance;
my foremothers
would surely look askance
at my housekeeping
fainéance.
Matter of fact,
I think they glanced
and left this subtle
recognizance.
(Is this literary irony? I’m stuck in this dry, arid word desert, and dust gives me words. )
I am in a word desert, dear reader. Have you been here? For a while now, every time I try to write there are no words. None. For as far as my brain can see, not even a syllable. I know I’ll find my way out, but I don’t know when.
As you know, dear reader, I am in the process of down-sizing. And process it is. I still have things in a storage unit, and I’m here to tell you that “out of sight, out of mind” does not apply: those things jabber at me all the time, yelling across town “We’re still here, you know!”
Sorting through life’s accumulation requires thinking, contemplating, reflecting, and — the biggest obstacle of all — remembering. One cannot just pick up a box and heave it into the garbage — it might have an old birthday card in it! And heaven forbid I throw out a Tiny Tears dress I’d intended to keep forever!
For me, what greases this slow-grinding process is anger. When I get angry, I can see so clearly what I don’t need! I can see how junk is weighing me down, and out with it!
The last few weeks have brought — for me — the climax of a long wind-up of anger and grief and resentment and depression and disbelief and despair and frustration and disgust, as I try to understand what has made children and women such disposable commodities. My struggles culminated in a free-for-all of unloading. And thus did I fill my car on the weekend for our community recycling day, and thus did I heap my own recycling bin to overflowing.
An inadequate catharsis, perhaps, but at least a constructive one. At the rate things are going, all my belongings will soon fit in a thimble.
Oddments 