Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Desert Island Dicks

Dag, should wake up early for yoga, nope, writing this instead.

Caesura
"It's easier if I pretend you're on a mission in Antarctica." --Christopher des Sots

I have cultivated a smile that smoothes time over,
Glosses the inevitable awkwardness in the shuffle
From you to you, the span when I am on
My own. I compose a way to face
Not knowing, and hope this calm mien
Will someday be mine, naturalized, spreading
Bright serenity like the daffodils on the lake shores.
Stupid flowers. Tinny little bobble heads. I could sob
And lie down in the mud. But I will frame kind words
And thank you notes, something I never write
Enough of, my gratitude, truly, profound enough,
These days, to shock me, to give the sense that it
Grows outside myself, yes, it dwells in a hole
In the center of the deepest part of the lake
And a stone tossed there would never be recovered.
This is how much I love you (and you, a plural pronoun)
For what you have done. You must know.
I run the caged ramp, around and around,
Up to the caged bridge over the train tracks--
Fences surround me, and looking back,
Well, there's the lake, small and far away.

1 comment:

Slothrop said...

Yeah, "fences surround me"...brilliant. & the fences inside too...1 thing I love about this is the way it brings certain moments of running into hard clarity. The smile (well, to you who pass me possibly an agonized rictus) I force onto my face to convince my body that this is really fun, & it actually helps. As I approach The Wall the various people who comprise me get into a brawl. Their language won't be repeated here...b/c yours totally takes over.

I'm still turning over the stone in the lake & I think I will be for quite a while. Perfect for my next run. Thanks.