Thursday, April 24, 2003

A remarkable poem that captures what it feels like to air the place out as spring settles in on the island.



If You Get There Before I Do



Air out the linens, unlatch the shutters on the eastern side,

and maybe find that deck of Bicycle cards

lost near the sofa. Or maybe walk around

and look out the back windows first.

I hear the view's magnificent: old silent pines

leading down to the lakeside, layer upon layer

of magnificent light. Should you be hungry,

I'm sorry but there's no Chinese takeout,

only a General Store. You passed it coming in,

but you probably didn't notice its one weary gas pump

along with all those Esso cans from decades ago.

If you're somewhat confused, think Vermont,

that state where people are folded into the mountains

like berries in batter. . . . What I'd like when I get there

is a few hundred years to sit around and concentrate

on one thing at a time. I'd start with radiators

and work my way up to Meister Eckhart,

or why do so few people turn their lives around, so many

take small steps into what they never do,

the first weeks, the first lessons,

until they choose something other,

beginning and beginning their lives,

so never knowing what it's like to risk

last minute failure. . . .I'd save blue for last. Klein blue,

or the blue of Crater Lake on an early June morning.

That would take decades. . . .Don't forget

to sway the fence gate back and forth a few times

just for its creaky sound. When you swing in the tire swing

make sure your socks are off. You've forgotten, I expect,

the feeling of feet brushing the tops of sunflowers:

In Vermont, I once met a ski bum on a summer break

who had followed the snows for seven years and planned

on at least seven more.

We're here for the enjoyment of it, he said,

to salaam into joy. . . .I expect you'll find

Bibles scattered everywhere, or Talmuds, or Qur'ans,

as well as little snippets of gospel music, chants,

old Advent calendars with their paper doors still open.

You might pay them some heed. Don't be alarmed

when what's familiar starts fading, as gradually

you lose your bearings,

your body seems to turn opaque and then transparent,

until finally it's invisible--what old age rehearses us for

and vacations in the limbo of the Middle West.

Take it easy, take it slow. When you think I'm on my way,

the long middle passage done,

fill the pantry with cereal, curry,

and blue and white boxes of macaroni, place the

checkerboard set, or chess if you insist,

out on the flat-topped stump beneath the porch's shadow,

pour some lemonade into the tallest glass

you can find in the cupboard,

then drum your fingers, practice lifting your eyebrows,

until you tell them all--the skeptics, the bigots, blind neighbors,

those damn-with-faint-praise critics on their hobbyhorses--

that I'm allowed,

and if there's a place for me that love has kept protected,

I'll be coming, I'll be coming too.



-- Dick Allen, from The Day Before




Via riley dog





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