Mauve evening descends
gently taking the day down
below the dark world
forgetting the day
is quiet and softly still
pink clouds overhead
driving home tonight
glad for the little pleasures
given me today.
Tomorrow I’ll rise
in the newness of morning
given me each day.
Thought I’d slide up route 22
to visit Robert Frost today
a good cool bright-blue-sky day
but big red signs at the state line
warned me Vermont was closed
well, sort of, you know
and it was too hard to figure out.
Trying to do the right thing
after a year of trying but
it’s complicated
So sorry Robert. Did you go by Bob?
I’ve always wondered that but don’t
know you well enough to ask.
I have been thinking about you these
past few days since your birthday.
I was thinking about you back home
watching the nuthatches travel my birch
hopping up and down wide curly trunks.
I think you would have enjoyed that
both the ride up and down the valley
and the sunny afternoon under the birch.
and a related haiku or two:
it’s complicated
living in the between times
wanting to fly freeno visit to vermont
quarantine is still the rule
I’ll read Frost at home.
Ended up today in the grocery store
for the first time in a year.
It was so much bigger than I remembered:
dark ceiling, ignored arrows on floor,
shelves and shelves of exotic stuff
I remember the years of lingering
trying to decide between this or that,
indulging in this curious pasta shape,
remembering to get soap and soup.
But today the noise and people
now both strangers to me were all
and I tried not to run down the aisle
to the counter for my leg of lamb
Apparently they could not bring that
to my waiting car as they had
the rest of my order on Monday.
The butcher searched and and gave it to me
with congratulations – the last one he said
I waited in line with it and two dozen eggs
my mother will be coloring no doubt.
A helpful person asked me to wait
then pointed me to the next cashier,
chatting, surprised I hadn’t been there
since last year and so was I amazed –
not at the time but that my wondering aloud
about how to return to the grocery store
had been answered, like a school room prayer.
the haiku version:
went inside grocery
first time in a year today
all loud and wondrous
Rain again, running down the sky,
the window, into the roots
of still uncertain plants
You may think the world a grey place
with a winter full of snow
and the rainy stretches of
that in between place known as March
so not sure of where it’s going
to winter or beyond
One day snow, the next shirt sleeves,
the daffodils poke up
and snow tucks their bed in again.
Meanwhile I come and go,
with not much of a plan except that
something will happen tomorrow
unfamiliar or not.
Here’s the haiku version:
rain again running down
the sky, the window, the roots
of uncertain plants
is there a map back
to where we are going if
that’s where we’re going – back.
the familiar stream banks
fidget day to day
as cold early rains
return the clouds to earth
and remind the fields
they aren’t meant to be
always yellow and tan.
So even though these hills
and the curves of the road
are easy enough to follow –
each tree in rosy bud,
each twig added to nest
the quick burst of daffodil –
the world is turning remember
not returning, so go on.
Man knows more than he understands.
