I can think instead about the buzzing of the small crickets that seems so much softer tonight. I can think about the cool air scented with unexpected gardenias, and how it flows through my window from dusk to pull the day's heat from all this gathered clutter. I can think about all the already dead leaves that are littering the dead lawn— autumns onset. I can think about that almost half-full moon that is making the pines glimmer against the darkening sky. All these are much betting things to think about than that dull list of dull foods I'll be eating this week.
Well, not all dull. I did get a deal on a lemon meringue pie, which will thaw soon enough to be desert tonight once I get around to eating dinner after the English people are done murdering one another on television. Plus I can be happy that I'll almost certainly not miss the rescheduled appointment with the chiropractor this Tuesday, and then my neck will probably stop trying to snap my head off. After that the dull foods will be a small enough problem. Maybe they'll have something better on sale next week.
Sunday Verse
The Secret
by Denise Levertov
Two girls discover
the secret of life
in a sudden line of
poetry.
I who don't know the
secret wrote
the line. They
told me
(through a third person)
they had found it
but not what it was
not even
what line it was. No doubt
by now, more than a week
later, they have forgotten
the secret,
the line, the name of
the poem. I love them
for finding what
I can't find,
and for loving me
for the line I wrote,
and for forgetting it
so that
a thousand times, till death
finds them, they may
discover it again, in other
lines
in other
happenings. And for
wanting to know it,
for
assuming there is
such a secret, yes,
for that
most of all.