| Dampened |
[Feb. 5th, 2017|11:38 pm]
rejectomorph
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In the last hour the wind has grown fierce, and I fear an electrical outage may result. Despite the threat, the wind is quite invigorating, as was the low overcast of tumbling clouds that prevailed this afternoon. I managed to go shopping without getting soaked until leaving the last store, when a downpour drenched me as I was going to the car and putting my bags in it. I got soaked again when taking them from the car into the house, as the garage is stuffed with stuff belonging to a nephew, making it impossible to get the car indoors, and his derelict ruck parked in the driveway lengthens the trip between the car and the covered area. Five hours later my jacket is not yet entirely dry.
Days of this lie ahead, but I won't have to go out in it again this week, unless it is when I must put the wheelie bins out for the trash truck tomorrow. Maybe I'll catch a break and there'll be a break in the rain timed just right. There have been breaks in the rain tonight, but it's too soon to be taking wheelie bins out. Still the odds are not with me. Tomorrow is supposed to be the rainiest of the next five rainy days. I can easily imagine the rain continuing uninterrupted hour after hour from before dawn until the next day. This is not rare here.
But for now I get to stay indoors and listen to the gusts that make the pine trees moan, and the occasional spatter of wind-driven rain on my window. Indeed, I couldn't ask for a better night to be indoors— as long as the power stays on. I might even make myself some cocoa and have a slice of cake with it. Winter brings such luxury!
Sunday Verse
The Silence
by Jane Hirshfield
One acquaintance says of another,
"I think he's a happy man,"
then pauses.
I see on his face what I also
am thinking,
and wonder what he is remembering,
inside our silence.
I am remembering a funeral,
friend after friend rising to speak
of the lost one.
I did not know him well,
yet still, by one thing he had told me,
wore fully our closeness.
Or perhaps it was even simpler—
to whom else could he say the truth?
I wondered, even then,
how many others attending knew also one thing.
Each secret separate, different,
leading its life now without him:
carrying laundry, washing the windows, straightening up.
As they do, perhaps, I would like to sit down now and rest.
I would like to ponder the flavor
of how much I know of others, how much I do not;
of what of me is known and what is not.
A conversation is overhead on a train, on an airplane,
and even Love cannot know the whole.
It sits in the row behind,
listening quietly to what it is able.
Then the green and red wing-lights blink out;
the train rounds the track's curve and is lost.
Love, also disappearing,
would like to tap the two murmuring ones on the shoulder.
Love would like to say to them,
"Speak more fearlessly—This is the only—Say what you can."
Politeness forbids it.
Love sits in the row behind,
and quietly listens.
Love lowers its stricken face so no one will see.
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