Nine minutes till the bus is due, to pick
me up and help me tote the groceries.
I have my phone of course – I now equip
my travels with it for emergencies.
But I’ve scant use for its amenities.
I watch the kids and wonder why they do
(I peek – they flit in app-y quantities).
I’ll use mine to record this pleasant view.
Two nights ago as I lay down to sleep,
I contemplated chores that I could do
the next day or the next, for each would keep –
immediate was no demand I knew.
Then rising early, I’d the mood for two
before my exercise, and then three more.
Without insistence now all jobs are through,
and I’ve a day ahead without a chore.
A train of thought has left the roundhouse now –
the pistons slowly push connecting rods
as someone reading journals ponders how
malfeasance rose so steadily, and nods,
connecting episodes. Did school allow,
by triggering contempt? What are the odds?
The train accelerates with fuel to burn,
but must take care to navigate this turn.
While I detest the wasp, that either stings
or bites, for it will dine on plants or meat,
and hate the sound inside that’s made by wings
of a mosquito near my bed or seat,
the source that often irks, of insect things,
upsetting solitude that should be sweet,
is buzzing from a fly that will not quit,
conveying nervous panic with its flit.
When both the kids were ordered to the shrink
because of misbehavior school-detected,
the first psychologists they came to think
moronic and dishonest. We expected
much better then we found, and soon rejected
the ones who self-described as “special friend,”
the ever-sympathetic and affected.
It’s rare to find who will not condescend.
Rereading what I wrote when he was born
and till he left our home, I see how sweet
he was before preschool. They set to warn
us then of angry fits, when he’d defeat
their socializing systems with his scorn,
rejecting time-outs like an obsolete
response. His sole regret was getting caught,
and squeezed by institutions, we were fraught.
When I was 5 and guided by a nurse,
escorting me upstairs for surgery,
and taking me confused to something worse,
she forward-bent, with palm upon her knee
and asked me how I was, addressing me
by name resembling mine but not correct.
I loathed her posture and activity.
“She’s stupid and a fake,” I recollect.
All correspondence now has been reviewed.
Though some collections beg to be reread
before return to friends as recall food,
the bulk is boxed with stuff we’re going to shred.
The spiral notebooks where I drafted verse
that went to toner and became a post,
or never rose to what could reimburse
my effort, now are destined to be toast.
I spent long hours browsing diaries
and journals, gleaning details, nothing deep
in revelation – writing were the keys,
and only those from school days did I keep.
The mountain’s now a mesa. I suppose
the next step is to winnow through my prose.
Cut flowers haven’t charmed me for a while;
they seem an offering that’s bound to die.
Perhaps it’s how she lifted them – that smile
of affection, toddler-voicing “hi,”
but I was glad to take them into my
small place. I may be entering a phase
more gracious, less judgmental. So I try
to pick a windowsill, and find a vase.
That 20 minute morning walk, I tried
to notice where I went and felt, instead
of concentrating on ideas I spied
reviewing journal entries. In my head
I wandered, while each 8-pound weighted tread
was made amid air springtime soft and sweet.
I caught a train and rode it as I read,
and only focused rising to the street.
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