"Fair to middlin'...," she says, visibly, audibly, olfactorily tired. Like a threshold, I think to myself but say nothing since she looks and sounds unready for clever or even philosophical fat chewing. "How have you been?" I had asked reflexively. "Fine, and you?" That's what I expected if I expected anything at all. But instead, a verbal grimace, "Fair to middlin'." I can't help but prologue her ...
Poetry
Your Place
"Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things." ~ Mary Oliver (from "Wild Geese") Perhaps Mary Oliver's reminder is and appropriate response to midlife loneliness. After all, when "the world offers itself to your imagination", you can certainly ...
Blur
Explain… that you live in a blur Of hours and days, months and years, and believe It has meaning, despite the occasional fear You are slipping away with nothing completed, nothing To prove you existed. ~ Mark Strand Those dark, contemplative words are excerpted from Mark Strand's poem "The Continuous Life" (The Continuous Life, Knopf, 1991). I include them here to admit they resonate, not every ...
Furtive
Some sneak up, stealthy, furtive, Stalk a poem through wilderness, Nose to wind or cheek to track, Eyes squinty slitted, jaw clenched, Fingers poised, ready to pounce. (Source: "Poetic Divagation", 40x41: Midlife Crisis Postponed) Opening volley in a two-part poem about writing poetry. Or hunting it. Or romancing it... ...
Paper Poem
Sometimes the stop and start uncertainty, The tactile tension, texture and cross-outs, Wine blots, smudges, and tangled doodles Are the only way to breath life into a verse. (Source: "Paper Poem", 40x41: Midlife Crisis Postponed) This latter chunk of a fleeting vignette on the analog/digital duality neither burnishes nor batters digital creativity. While less of a "divide" every day, there ...
Memento Mori by Billy Collins
It's time I return to the topic of memento mori, no? Billy Collins has [at least] twice taken up the "Memento Mori" title/topic. "There is no need for me to keep a skull on my desk, to stand with one foot up on the ruins of Rome, or wear a locket with the sliver of a saint’s bone. It is enough to realize that every common object in this sunny little room will outlive me– the carpet, ...