He called her arrogant, because she said
she’d read the finest novels in her tongue.
He should have used another word instead,
for she had gorged on stories, starting young
and unremitting, sitting late in bed,
denting cushions, warming seats among
commuters, finding weakness, loving peaks.
She studied books, and knows of what she speaks.
It isn’t just possessing extra time,
though I am old and clearly doing less.
I always got some leisure; I’d a prime
directive to indulge myself, I guess.
I read so much and viewed it as no crime,
I picked the English major to address
my need to read and puzzle. But when young,
much time when up in smoke or for my tongue.
A flicker in the kitchen signaled me
when I arose today, before the sun.
The fan above the stove’s a mystery
that now and then blue-lights, but it was done
in minutes. I resumed contentedly,
but then I heard loud buzzing caused by one
invasive fly. No sooner had I creased
a magazine to hunt, than vexing ceased.
Behavior reckoned age-appropriate,
appareled and accessoried just so,
comporting as our culture deems most fit,
requires sense I never seemed to know,
compliance that in soul I didn’t grow.
And even now I don’t possess the gauge.
I boggle at where expectations blow.
Consistently, I fail to act my age.
I know we call them weeds, but they look good
along the entrance path. And even though
they’ll either dry to straw-pale clumps that should
be pulled or, irrigated, overgrow,
for now I like the way they edge fence wood
and soft-imply sweet water underflow.
Geranium lucidum makes a crowd
of green that for a month will be allowed.
From expectation to reality
exists a space where worry might be sown,
where stress can root and angst can come to be.
The span is temporal and may be bridged
with sturdy planks of equanimity.
I’m learning to reduce projection now,
and register result while earnestly
accepting what from sensing can be known.
The gap is shrinking to infinity.
The toughest type of solitaire I play
I often start six times before I’m done.
But sometimes I undo, and that’s the way
I chose to go this morning. Was it fun?
Perhaps that’s not the word for it today,
but I declined to back away. The sun
progressed from dawn to fully evident
while I an hour and one minute spent.
We know a little rain (or more) will fall
in every life. An adage tells us so.
Experience confirms it for us all,
but looking over 40 years will show
far less of pain and grief for some I know
than many. One got cancer. Three divorced.
Of half a dozen kids, one failed to grow.
By fortune was our little group endorsed.
I cannot comprehend celebrity.
Oh, I get heroes, who prioritize
their ethics over self, humanity
before success, but only feel surprise
at interest in one’s sexuality
or clothes or how they really want their fries.
To sing a song or act won’t rock my mind.
But maybe I’m autistically inclined.
The deck is daily dotted with these blooms
I don’t recall encountering before,
inviting pollination, one assumes,
that leads to seeds like Phillips screws galore
that injure unshod feet and clutter floor.
I don’t know what the blossom falls suggest.
I hope this doesn’t mean the tree is stressed.
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