Compendium? That wasn’t my intent
when I began to write four months ago.
If anything, an epic’s what I meant:
a spine of narrative from which would flow
vignettes and episodes I thought might grow
to 90,000 words or even more.
The path revealed. The process went from core
to fruiting branch, and nourished me. I see
I didn’t draft the shape I planned before.
Compendium instead’s inviting me.
The tenant who inhabits upper front
acts selfish and entitled more than not.
Complaining to an owner, she was blunt
and rude. If she has style she forgot
to show it. She was raised to be a snot –
her single mom’s permissive, passive, false.
But here’s the thing – the prior dweller shot
connections too – is something in the walls?
Three plans this week got canceled through no act
of mine. One friend’s fatigue sent her to bed.
Another’s scattered mind mistook a fact,
forgot the date, and stayed at home, she said,
awaiting window blinds. I heard no tact
but gracefully I changed my plan instead.
And now today’s event won’t see the light.
I wish I’d gotten news of that last night.
The lesson lasting from a lavish meal
is I’m too old to eat and drink so much.
It entered easily, with great appeal,
but exit isn’t graceful, and the touch
of indigestion, borne with gas, is such
that I will make an effort to recall
this aftermath, this gripping inner clutch,
and next time I’ll decline to eat it all.
My baby’s 44 years old this week.
I’m happy we’re both healthy and alive,
pursuing the peculiar goals we seek,
amid the love of family. We thrive
on upward-trending paths, in each technique
applied to learn yet more while we survive.
If I’ve a prayer today, it’s not unique:
to be as well when he is 45.
It’s not majestic ocean on display.
No mountain top provides wide-angled view.
A canyon isn’t carved and can’t convey
by marbled walls and caverns glimpses to
prehistory. Instead my mundane way
is common and pedestrian. In lieu
of spectacle, what soothes my eyes and feet
is dappled shade and verdance on the street.
The end’s in sight, although the work’s not done.
I see ahead of me a focused light
that isn’t aimed at me to smash or stun.
The end’s in sight.
I thought I had a million words to write
but 50,000 in, I think my run
is near complete – from seed to bud to height.
I’ll cut and augment; editing is fun.
I like the way this led and how it quite
suggests a second story spun from one.
The end’s in sight.
It’s Southern California warm today.
It’s nearly Vegas hot at 9 a.m.
I planned to walk to BART, but this display
of temperature, predicted well by them
in media, will make my will okay
a prudent bus ride. Only time will stem
this tide of heat – the forecast calls for cooling.
Tomorrow will relieve today’s unspooling.
I’m nodding to unusual today.
The rest of June and even some July
will be irregular. Across the bay
I won’t be much. I’ll pack a bag and fly.
I’ll dine on different food and watch a play
I hope to like. And maybe I’ll deny
myself some comfort habits growing stale.
I start this morning detouring my trail.
The lesson from self-injuries last week,
that’s reinforced as I take days to heal,
is all about developing technique
to slow my speed ingesting any meal,
and with deliberate pace let acts unreel.
Okay to walk as fast as is my wont
when I set forth to shop or on a jaunt
across this town or underneath the bay,
I must observe the pavement, lest it haunt
my steps and trip my feet along the way.
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