summer_jackel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summer_jackel) wrote2009-02-04 02:37 pm
summer_jackel) wrote2009-02-04 02:37 pm
Entry tags:
Sketches of a Life in January
Hey, I'm only 4 days late on this.
January is the coldest month, heart of winter. Wolf’s moon.
But this will be a drought year; the sky shines with dangerous clarity and unsettling warmth. The rivulets are silent.
And I, walking through the quiet, brittle trees, wonder what might be bidden by this early spring.
*
The new puppy is asleep beside me. When I lift his tiny paws, examine their tender pink pads, I can hardly imagine them carrying him over granite mountaintops;
More difficult still, when I run my fingers through my old man’s thick and beautiful mane,
The realization that his never will again.
*
Living human is a practical thing;
Your septic tank fails, and you’d better start digging.
75 cinder blocks and two pallets of concrete and mortar are quite tangible,
and they leave a memory of sweat and satisfied exhaustion in your body for a few days after.
But when the hole was five feet deep and shoulder wide, I lay down in it
Felt of the cool moist earth, and closed my eyes
Its weight beside and above and below me was comforting, and there rose in me a sad and gentle serenity. Being human, isn’t it this, after all:
You struggle for awhile, and there are a few exquisite moments. And then there comes the time for laying down.
*
When there is a sea-cave, and the day is warm, and the tide low
Of course,
Of course you go into it, if you want to call yourself alive
Half-slipping in the slick brown mats of algae, into the dark stillness
And if you are rewarded with dozens of tiny miracles
Sponges in vivid yellow, carmine
Anemones so vividly green they hardly seem natural
only to be outdone by tiny slugs the color of blood and lemons and the sun;
What is the emotion?
Not surprise, I hope, but gratitude
Humility and love,
The honor and recognition of shared fragility.
January is the coldest month, heart of winter. Wolf’s moon.
But this will be a drought year; the sky shines with dangerous clarity and unsettling warmth. The rivulets are silent.
And I, walking through the quiet, brittle trees, wonder what might be bidden by this early spring.
*
The new puppy is asleep beside me. When I lift his tiny paws, examine their tender pink pads, I can hardly imagine them carrying him over granite mountaintops;
More difficult still, when I run my fingers through my old man’s thick and beautiful mane,
The realization that his never will again.
*
Living human is a practical thing;
Your septic tank fails, and you’d better start digging.
75 cinder blocks and two pallets of concrete and mortar are quite tangible,
and they leave a memory of sweat and satisfied exhaustion in your body for a few days after.
But when the hole was five feet deep and shoulder wide, I lay down in it
Felt of the cool moist earth, and closed my eyes
Its weight beside and above and below me was comforting, and there rose in me a sad and gentle serenity. Being human, isn’t it this, after all:
You struggle for awhile, and there are a few exquisite moments. And then there comes the time for laying down.
*
When there is a sea-cave, and the day is warm, and the tide low
Of course,
Of course you go into it, if you want to call yourself alive
Half-slipping in the slick brown mats of algae, into the dark stillness
And if you are rewarded with dozens of tiny miracles
Sponges in vivid yellow, carmine
Anemones so vividly green they hardly seem natural
only to be outdone by tiny slugs the color of blood and lemons and the sun;
What is the emotion?
Not surprise, I hope, but gratitude
Humility and love,
The honor and recognition of shared fragility.