I've made so many short visits to so many places, just enough time to get a sort-of sense of a place, and then off. Also, I'm getting to the age where my memories are turning into mush--a sort of treacly mixture of names, images, sensations. Generally good but not very easy to distinguish one spoonful from the next. Of course there are those bits that stand out of the bowl, impressions and experiences which I can go back to and revisit and recognize all the lines and shapes that made them.
Right now I'm in Syndey. It is cold but sunny. My mornings are short rushes to the train and the bus and the days are long and somewhat winding as I make my way through papers and people, trying to learn something and share something of what I have learned before.
And in the middle of all that, there is still poetry...some of which disappears the moment I've thought the words, and other bits that get written down on scraps of paper.
Here's one. It's called "Suburbia everywhere"
Walk. Rush.
The train's almost here.
Drat. Missed it.
Slipped on the wet pavement
[and depending on where I was]
--the heel broke.
--I fell into a pile of rubbish.
--I fell into a puddle.
--I'm caught just in time by a fellow pedestrian.
[all likely scenarios]
Why do we do this?
Living far away from the city
seems to make the countryside dream
that much more possible.
No matter
that one-sixth of my life
--on any everyday basis--
is spent
cursing the weather, hot or cold,
counting the seconds to missed transport
or, as the case may be,
avoiding wet patches on the pavement.
Right now I'm in Syndey. It is cold but sunny. My mornings are short rushes to the train and the bus and the days are long and somewhat winding as I make my way through papers and people, trying to learn something and share something of what I have learned before.
And in the middle of all that, there is still poetry...some of which disappears the moment I've thought the words, and other bits that get written down on scraps of paper.
Here's one. It's called "Suburbia everywhere"
Walk. Rush.
The train's almost here.
Drat. Missed it.
Slipped on the wet pavement
[and depending on where I was]
--the heel broke.
--I fell into a pile of rubbish.
--I fell into a puddle.
--I'm caught just in time by a fellow pedestrian.
[all likely scenarios]
Why do we do this?
Living far away from the city
seems to make the countryside dream
that much more possible.
No matter
that one-sixth of my life
--on any everyday basis--
is spent
cursing the weather, hot or cold,
counting the seconds to missed transport
or, as the case may be,
avoiding wet patches on the pavement.
Comments