Gathering its lavender
pinning it with gold
autumn day retires
iridescently furloughed.
Thanks more to the S.W. Berg Photo Archives.
Tag Archives: robe
Connections: February 25
A heavy hand of winter
weighs on us today
a hoary wind lamenting
would blow us all away.
But here I sit in fuzzy robe
warm if not exotic
contemplating verb and noun
how utterly Quixotic.
Is it all inconsequential
or is it something more?
Should I care, or should I shrug?
The wind shrills “You’re a bore!”
Yet here’s my motley garden
leftover Valentine reds
my glorious amaryllis
with quadruple flaming heads.
Their warmth declares a battle
‘gainst dark and cold without.
I’m stuck between the forces
of will and writer’s doubt.
Connections: January 10
Winter came last night
not in quiet white
as it should
but in rumbling roaring wind
through the ‘hood.
It’s late this year
this winterbirth
almost surprise
still prickles to the lungs
tingles to the ears
marshmallows to the eyes.
Layers
I look like a shmoo.
It’s a three-robe morning: the cold is in my bones, and all my robes are called to duty.
The first robe is an ancient peachy-pink flannel. I’ve lost count of its years, poor thing. Maybe twenty? It is a favorite — you know, one of those things in your closet that should never wear out. Its zipper and elastic have gone the way of the pyramids. It is threadbare, limp, exhausted. An old friend. I love it.
Then the new robe, an authentic fuzzy pink. A vaguely bubble-gum pink, alas. Incredibly warm everywhere but my ankles, where the draft is wicked.
The top robe used to be Dad’s. A sober, grey, thinning pilled thing, trimmed in black. My sons and I gave it to him for Christmas after Mom died, and, had Dad known how much it cost, he never would have worn it. But wear it he did! When I had the audacity to wash it, Dad, Linus-like, sighed with relief when it was returned to him fresh from the dryer and he could meld with it again.
The night Dad died, in the comfort of Hospice care, I was wearing his robe, curled up in a big chair next to his bed. I’d fallen asleep. The aide came in, looked carefully at Dad and said, “It won’t be long now.” Within a minute I saw Dad’s body let go.
Do I think of that whenever I wear this robe? Pretty much. Sometimes it’s a butterfly memory, passing by lightly. Sometimes it’s Godzilla.
But three-robe cold will come. And I will meet it shmoo-like. That’s how life is.
