Tonight it has gotten cool enough that I've been able to turn off the air conditioner and let the fan and the open windows do the job of cooling the apartment down. It is a great relief. If the forecast is not mistaken I should be able to do that every night for the next two weeks at least, even though the days are all predicted to be in the nineties, except for today, which will be a mere 86. Such luxury!
Early Saturday I had a dream, and I actually remembered much of it, but then while I was thinking about it I fell asleep again and when I re-woke it was gone. I've been trying to recall it ever since, as I have the feeling it was very interesting, but no luck. The first dream I've remembered in years, and I forgot it. Or perhaps I only dreamed I was remembering a dream I had, and I'm remembering that dream as reality. In that case it was the first dream I've remembered in years, and I don't remember that it was a dream. Alas, I fear there's an excess of irony in my life.
Sunday Verse
Apogean
by Paul Guest
All this floating is ridiculous, and the stars,
like goldfish in a bowl, flutter and plume
to remind at this distance love isn't
urgent or imminent: it's a penny in a fusebox
to keep the lights going. On and down
one could follow a strand of kelp
to a den of slime, the octopus' garden,
if the light lasted longer than air—
but it never does. The night, the dark
and the clouds come, and driving home,
the cows on their knees huddle in fields.
It looks like rain, a voice will say,
but in truth it looks like time
punctuated with water. Here, too, come
the trees I misname and all the birds
changed without permission, lonesome
in their breasts for the old color, a signature
their mates would recognize, a song
to once again fit and fill their throats.
Apologies on old scraps are everywhere
like leaves in autumn, caught in a sleeve
or nestled on the wide, upturned brim of a hat.
This room fills with air when I leave it,
like a heart with blood, or lives with time—
the matters of course ticked off
like seconds or groceries presently needed
and absently bought. From the ceiling
a chandelier has bloomed like a glass lotus—
a troupe of dancers twirl: a dog barks:
in its mouth a lamb's femur cracks like fire.
