Meandering through campus on my way
to BART to Muni to the neighborhood
I visit twice a week, I shot a ray
of sun on water wending in the wood;
I photographed for keeping its display.
I’ve passed this spot and always found it good
for over 50 years, and though it’s changed
in increments, I never feel estranged.
A tide of Covid cycles through again.
My baby’s family has now been struck.
The father first detected it at 10
on Saturday – that prior evening’s guck
in throat was more than normal vernal phlegm.
Today we learned the scion didn’t duck
infection, but we females are okay.
Now father/son will have good time to play.
There used to stand a sort of body shop,
a DIY affair three blocks from me,
with little signs of life that seemed to stop
four years ago or so. Activity
did not resume before For Sale appeared.
And then the Notices announced a planned
construction of some housing – nothing weird
or unexpected – how we use such land.
Some weeks that grew to months transpired then,
but demolition now is nearly done,
the wood and concrete hauled away by men
who found within the structure that someone
created for old bikes a resting place,
the best of which are now chained near that space.
I wonder why I’m feeling somewhat sad.
I noticed it last night and it’s still here.
I sense within unease, though I’m not mad
and I’m not sick. I don’t detect a fear
or hurt. I’m loved by all whom I hold dear.
I overate last night but stayed azure.
Six hours in my bed made nothing clear.
I need more time I think to feel the cure.
The modem and the router have to talk,
and something made mine argue overnight.
I woke and had no internet. My squawk
was modulated – I behaved all right –
a round of non-electric tasks was quite
a worthy use of time till I could speak
with tech support – efficient and polite.
An update and reboot relieved the pique.
As autumn leaches chlorophyll from leaves,
the colors that appear were always there.
I hear when green is gone, the leaf achieves
its basic qualities. And I don’t care
if fact supports that – witnessing the wear
of age revealed my father’s gentleness.
As my own green depletes, and I repair
to patience, sweet in me grows obvious.
We’ve wondered what is keeping her on earth.
She’s not amassing wisdom, but maybe
she senses the dysfunction since my birth
and realizes, no doubt subconsciously,
if she were dead I’d pen her eulogy.
Alive she can continue the abuse
and I, so old myself, at last can see
pathology that constitutes excuse.
I often try imagining how you
are sensing now, or what it is to be
somebody else. But I don’t have a clue
how it feels to be clinically depressed.
Although I can be low at times, or blue,
my serotonin levels must be good.
So when I hear you claim you’re someone who
is all-emotion, feeling, empathy,
I miss the symptom you’re depressed anew.
Describing what it’s feeling like to age
and watch my peers advancing by my side,
I sense we’re all condensing. Like our gauge
is dialed back, and where it once was wide
is narrowed and it’s concentrating traits
that bloomed a quarter century from birth,
that leveled passing middle-age’s gates,
and chipped like a cut gem our span on earth.
The shape elongated to a marquise,
the facets catching and reflecting light,
comprising every hue in its degrees,
through center widening, on edges bright,
my transit has been smooth and seldom cruel.
I’ve worn the gift of living like a jewel.
I have to lie, although that means I throw
a game we said we’d honor till we die.
The whining for “I’m sorry” makes me know
I have to lie.
It’s not my fault she’s bothered. She won’t try
examining herself as cause of woe,
but fancies others’ words have birthed her sigh.
It’s no relief to hoist the mirror, though
reflection shows her whom to vilify.
She won’t attend to explanation, so
I have to lie.
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