A conversation Thursday night revealed
our different comprehensions of a term.
The morning afterward enlarged the field –
a friend insisted, vehemently firm,
we both were wrong. That evening I appealed
to yet a fourth. He guessed, until a germ
of dictionary definition grew.
Apparently none understood. Who knew?
As pages mount, the fruit of daily draft,
they water shoots of memory, from seeds
implanted in soft banks that guide a raft
down streams that swell with melt no dam impedes.
The passages reveal as work proceeds;
now differences in characters appear.
I plan to write perhaps what no one reads,
and prune to reap a harvest fresh and clear.
At last the sign went up. It’s been 4 years
the owner tried to sell the rooms he bought
to house a law school daughter. It appears
the price he pitched was high. It never brought
an offer. And the summer atmospheres
for sales were not productive. Overwrought,
he lowered price and let the seasons spin,
till February lured a buyer in.
I saw six ants, one skunk and two raccoons
the morning after drizzle, breeze and rain.
Our weather here is nothing like monsoons,
but we don’t tend to work on how things drain.
So standing water is a common bane –
mosquito pools and rodent bathing sites.
I don’t mind skunks, but raccoons could refrain
from shitting on my roof these recent nights.
I go to work on Tuesday for no pay –
the final phase in ending a career
I didn’t plan, that spanned until today
a half a century, it does appear.
I put in half a day as volunteer,
including lunch (good aliment and wine,
and company congenial and dear),
content with how matured this job of mine.
Eschewing news, disdaining gossip sites,
and solving all the daily puzzles fast
(the algorithm varies those delights –
today’s were simply easy), I’ve a vast
amount of time before this day has passed –
short office work and writing is in view,
but if some knowledge is to be amassed,
I’m hoping to acquire it from you.
Abundant wine last Saturday, although
accompanied by lavish food and chat,
resulted in an interrupted flow
of recollection. Maybe worse than that,
a headache bowed my neck and didn’t go
away until I slept and drank a vat
of water. It should come as no surprise
how age takes longer to metabolize.
When I was 12 or so, I liked the pool,
adored the beach, and flourished at the lake.
In southern California, after school,
on weekends, and each summer we would take
to water, moving till our limbs were loose,
our bodies empty, and we felt so clean
inside, like nothing else could reproduce
sensation lost since I was 17.
Six decades later, I bathe every day –
I’m not a musty elder like my friends.
Internal is another thing – the way
to that allayed condition comprehends
elimination – I won’t be a grump,
as long as I can consummate a dump.
The random chat last night was, in a word,
a contest, for the longest piece of speech.
He offered up the “antidis…” he heard
at school (3rd grade) that peers will ever teach.
I told him that and tech terms are absurd,
and shared with him the longest English reach.
The winner of our playful conversation
was Floccinaucinihilipilification.
At half past 5 I rose to start the heat.
That’s something that I’ve never done before.
But age has made me shiver, and the feet
of February walk with even more
chill temperature than usual. We’re poor
withstanding cold; our windows are not storm.
I stand to wrap in layers this old core,
and wheel my limbs, attempting to get warm.
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