Coming to Terms...: the fall

Thursday, July 8, 2004

the fall

cradled in a safe chair
hi-fi stereo streaming
through giant earmuffs
     wandering the paths
          peering ahead, trembling
               struggling against the magnet of the past

easy to see the whole
two decades seemed a lifetime…

add a score plus ten
and now it is
---half a lifetime, anyway
     so many years
          so many burdens
               so many losses
I went somewhere…I did
but fell back
long fall, in slow motion
back to the chair, the stereo
and the paths
     and the wondering
          and the trembling
               and the struggling

9 comments:

AnonymousJuly 8, 2004 at 6:06 AM
Great poem! Makes me wonder what song took you on the trip. Oh so many do I guess. :-) ---Robbie
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AnonymousJuly 8, 2004 at 6:31 AM
One of my friends and I were wondering just a couple of days ago what on earth ever made us think that middle age wouldn't be packed with terrifying problems and uncertainties.
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AnonymousJuly 8, 2004 at 1:24 PM
Don't we all. Is this yours? I like.
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AnonymousJuly 8, 2004 at 3:50 PM
I love this, Lisa. You're a poet!!!! Share some more!!!
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AnonymousJuly 8, 2004 at 10:23 PM
This is a very nice poem. You write very well. I like the contents in here.

Thank you for the nice comments on my blog. I find it fascinating that you saw them build Great America here. I remember you telling me that you are originally from here and you moved to the Northwest coast. Can I ask what made you leave the best city in the world?

Have you started reading My Life BTW?

Anita
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AnonymousJuly 9, 2004 at 11:20 PM
WOW that's a great poem.......love it!
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AnonymousJuly 15, 2004 at 5:46 AM
What a wonderful journal you have.... I will definitely be back. Loved your 'about me and the entries I have read so far. Leave the light on, I'll be back! Thanks for coming to see me, judi
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AnonymousJuly 15, 2004 at 9:45 PM
Oh, Lisa. I am so glad you shared this. It's beautiful, and I relate to it so much.
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AnonymousJuly 19, 2004 at 8:55 PM
That is a lovely thing to read. Thanks for sharing. :-)
Donna
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Where I'm From

I am from station wagons, from kool-aid and turf-builder.
I am from the three bedroom, one bath ticky-tacky box
with the swath of weedy lawn; from lightning bugs,
June bugs, and mosquitoes the size of small birds.

From nights near as hot as the days,
spread-eagled on sticky sheets
crickets creaking, horns honking,
trains rumbling and whistling in the distance…

I am from snow to the eaves, jewel-studded ice storms
and green-black thunderstorms with sideways rain.
I am from bright red tulips, honeysuckle berries,
and worms on the driveway after a cloudburst;
from daisies, tiny wild strawberries, “Queen Anne’s Lace”
and crashing the kite into power lines.

I am from “Look what followed me home from school”
and never having too many animals. From Taffy and Rusty
and Sunny, the yellow headed parakeet, who could say
“Happy Birthday” but only when he thought
no one was listening…

I am from the women who shuttle the carpool,
punch the clock, scrub the toilet,
then climb into the bottle, the herb
or the fantasy to quiet the noise in their heads
and the men they choose to rescue
or who choose to rescue them.

From “When you meet the right one, you’ll just know”
and “Your dad was a virgin when we were married…”
I am from the dutiful eldest daughter who paired off
home made and pro-created at the appointed time,
and the other four who didn’t.

I am from the tearful Catholic and the stoic agnostic;
the rope stretched taut between belief and unbelief,
pulled one direction, then the other…
the eternal tug of war never won.

I’m from pioneers of urban exile; before the country clubs and the soccer and the Rolls Royces.
I’m from the first McDonald’s and the last Tastee Freez.

I am from the great moldering box in the upstairs closet;
roaring twenties sepias stacked on
shiny square instamatic shots, discoloring with age.
I am from the five stair-steps, the Christmas trees, the campfires,
and the blurred mountains captured from a moving car.

I am from the unlikely union of a country boy and a city girl,
brought together by Hitler and Hirohito;
and the neighborhood of compromise
that kept them both sane…almost.

On Where We're Destined to Go...

As for life, I'm humbled,
I'm without words
sufficient to say
how it has been hard as flint,
and soft as a spring pond,both of these
and over and over,
and long pale afternoons besides,
and so many mysteries
beautiful as eggs in a nest,
still unhatched though warm and watched over
by something I have never seen
-a tree angel, perhaps,or a ghost of holiness.

Every day I walk out into the world
to be dazzled,
then to be reflective.
It suffices, it is all comfort -
along with human love,
dog love, water love, little-serpent love,sunburst love,
or love for that smallest of birds
flying among the scarlet flowers.

There is hardly time to think about
stopping, and lying down at last
to the long afterlife, to the tenderness
yet to come, when time will brim over the singular pond, and become forever,
and we will pretend to melt away into the leaves.

As for death,
I can't wait to be the hummingbird,
can you?

Mary Oliver

Thursday, July 8, 2004

the fall

9 comments:

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