A Poem

I had meant to post a new original poem for every day in April which was poetry month I believe. Better late than not at all. There’s a poem toward the end of this entry, not an original one. It’s one I came across on my laptop. 

There are lots of things “I meant to do” this month. For myriad reasons I’ve been productive in some aspects and not so much in other areas. 

This is my arts “studio” room. I temporarily parked all my plants here while I paint the other rooms. I need more house plants. This is not enough. Before painting the walls, the prep came first. Cleaning, sparkling, tossing out stuff, moving furniture, taking down curtains…

Glory be to God for dappled things…

-Gerard Manley Hopkins

And here is my dappled foot. Last Autumn I stuck my foot in a stream in Massachusetts. Am eager to have warmer weather and do so again…in fact I’ve got a new past time planned for summer. I’m going to make fairy houses!

So-The following poem was written in the first winter after Howie died. I often wondered, Where is your spirit now?

Above: an example of an outdoor fairy house. The trick to me building these is going to be finding an outdoor friendly weather resistant concrete. It’ll be nice seeing them from my (newly painted) kitchen window………

One Task, Revisited 
Starlings and titlarks bob greetings to each other; partake in barren spoils;

yammering at meager winter offerings in the year-end yard.

I turn a rag through a tumbler. The observer, the watch woman. Beyond the smudged pane, there’s the recycling bin. 

Hobo green. Smacking of condescension beneath the accusing limbs of the slumbering Maple. 

The Pollyanna plow has half-concealed this receptacle. Scalding water wakes my knuckles; a sublime arthritic remedy. Mugs knock elbows under the faucet spray.

My suds release kaleidoscopic bubble spheres that rise so pretty but they disappear. Where are you? Where are you now?

The repetitive tabby on the counter trancelike-bats the faucet stream in two. There is a rhyme to this sequence of events. 

This dish done

shall be done again.

 I know your physical body is set free-from the constraints of the suffering.  The conjob of hope was a clinging vine dear; but the vine’s cut away.

This pruning has revealed pillars there; shrouded before. I’m going to assume they are strong. Because you told me I was.

As for physical remnants of you, except for what ashes went into the stream-you stay inside the dappled container that’s

awash in the blue flickers from the chatterbox TV; in the adjacent room.

 but where are you?

 These transient thoughts of silent you—and then the glass I’m squeezing cracks.

Water burbles over the aluminum basin. Sings with self-assurance; the water! It chants in its sensuous brogue. 

The pretty blood flows over and around; through my rejuvenated fingers; knuckles. Down down the drain. 

 One task revisited; I pause to consider as I stare unfocused, through the smudged window separating me from the cold that plays, oh look at

silver-tongued snowflakes in their serenade. No two the same.

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Update on my paintings that are in Boston: I’ve sold four of them. Update on my healthy living changes: I’ve lost 52 1/2 lbs. 

my secret below: