This afternoon, though cool, was all brightness and soft breezes, and but for the brown patches on the lawn, which has not yet recovered from summer drought, and the crackling oak leaves already strewn upon the ground, I might have taken the season for early spring. The hummingbird who buzzed by and found no flowers remaining on most of the plants undoubtedly knew better. I'd guess that only humans lose track of such things. And if I had lost track, I probably wouldn't have known if it was still last March or already next March. But then, would it really matter?
Sunday Verse
Wait
by Galway Kinnell
Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.
Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.