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2012-09-07 - 1:30 p.m.
what the living do
you are always most alive to me in autumn. we want the spring to come and the winter to pass - but april was the cruelest month for you, and eventually, it had its way. how we subvert and are subverted by such metaphor. september, 1994.
up in cambridge, you caught your toe on a wobbly brick and rolled into a pratfall, bouncing back as if this street were a vaudeville stage. when i was very small, you would toss me around like a baby buster keaton, and later, you gave me so many books. you showed me how to draw hair, a nose, a wistful catchlight in a yearning eye. there are these ways i remember you, filtered by that yearning and what you finally gave up. but you also arrive in other ways. i think i'd like to tell you about this band or that artist, a letter, a kiss - and there is always more and more and then more of it, as if you could call or not call. if only.
* * *
in the evenings, a crisp breeze whisks the warm, damp air out of the hollows. a few dry leaves rustle and skitter along the pavement. i like to run until my vision fades around the edges. when i stop, i nearly fall down, but if i choose not to stop, i can keep going and going.
* * *
reading: la nieve del almirante, again. my husband recommended el gaviero to my lovely silent friend, so i thought i'd revisit these stories.
listening to: the sound of rooftop construction.
working on: settling into my new position, here at a desk in a fishbowl office.
in the garden: oh, my poor garden. i have to prune back and rip weeds, and plant the things that are rooted and ready. i like to keep my garden hovering on the edge of neglect, like you might find around an old farmhouse or abandoned homestead. but that's an illusion achieved by work and planning, not by any failure to provide adequate care.
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