Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Making it stay

Put the breaks on. Stay in bed late; write it down, taking pains, using ink, like a scribe in a monestary for all time. Meditate; catch up with the moment; go out for a walk; have a long, slow brunch at home on Saturday morning; sit in a favorite chair reading in the silence; observe the neighbors taking out their trash.

Procrastinate.

Cut the cat's claws; take a long nap. Shadows go, light comes up, shadows lengthen again. Try to make it stay. Watch it, breath it, listen to it, note it, count it as it runs past with the color and chaos of a Thanksgiving 5k.

Or dance to its rhythm; pump the bicycle at 80 beats to each precious minute; match its pace with your heartbeat; soak it in; collect the smiles of your friends; the playbills, the ticket stubs; the red fallen leaves and crow feathers.

Do anything, or do nothing, but do not wish this ludicrous turkey trot over.

Evening

Dusk, a pas de deux of day and night,
a balance point,
an evening,
a sighing silhouette behind a scrim.
Sunset leaps and slides behind the cardboard hill.
Color fades,
heat lifts its arms and exits right.
Enter the cool, sweet, suspect night:
a little dark, a little danger,
then day's heat dashes through pursued by owls.
Now dark swaggers back on and dances
'til rosy-fingered dawn raises her curtain on
day two.