I managed to get the groceries into the house without drowning, then settled down to enjoy the fury. It didn't last long, though, and I was soon able to go back outdoors and see the sunlight emerge, along with the feral cats.
Tonight there are clouds with occasional stars peeking through them, and from the mountains now and then a flash of lightning rushes across the dark sky, but it is always too far off for the thunder to be heard. It is a very relaxing scene— so relaxing that I stayed outside watching it for much too long, and now it is late. I must heat some soup for dinner and watch English people probably not kill one another on television, as the current offering is not a mystery. I guess I can do without the slaughter, as the soup is pretty good.
Sunday Verse
On the Problem of Remembering Your Face
by Cilla McQueen
Old sailors with their
celestial navigation knew
the trick: not to look straight
at, but past, catching
your star deviously
(a delicate business, this,
like remembering a dream)
in the corner of the eye
Continually you elude me;
I'm having trouble with
this obliquity -
there is, for example, this
mouth above my forehead, this
shoulder beyond my cheekbone, a
familiar gesture of yours,
somewhere, only just
out of vision -
Each time, naively, I
forget about the old
sailors adn look, directly, to
see you disintegrate in
mocking ripples, then
reassemble gradually your
familiar fragments as a hand, an
eyebrow, a bone beneath the skin
just beyond the corner of
my eye
It is the plight of
Orpheus, who in the
moment of turning sent
his beloved
exploding in splinters
outwards into darkness
- instantly to reassemble
into a perfect image of
herself, always
henceforth
(a dream of shadow
slipping through fingers)
just beyond his field of vision -
I could remember you, easily,
if you didn't fly
apart all the time,
like this.
