Poem for Wednesday

Dead Man, Thinking
By Bruce Weigl

i.
    Snow geese in the light of morning sky,
exactly at the start of spring. I was
    looking through the cracks of the blinds at my future which seemed
absent of parades, for which I was grateful,
    and only yesterday

                
I watched what an April wind could do
    to a body wrapped in silk,
though I turned my eyes away,
    the way the teacher says,
once the beauty was revealed.

ii.
How long it takes to die, in the fifty-fifth year
    is what I thought about today.
I told some truths so large, no one could bear to hear them.
    I bow down to those who could not hear the truth.
They could not hear the truth because they were afraid
    that it would open a veil into nothing.
I bow down to that nothing. I bow down to a single red planet
    I saw in the other world’s sky,
spinning,
    as if towards some
fleshy inevitability.

    I bow down to the red planet. I bow down
to the noisy birds, indigenous to this region.
    Only sorrow can bend you in half
    like you’ve seen on those whose loves have gone away.
I bow down to those loves.

--------

I am officially sick of this heat wave. Not only have I had a headache every day since I got back from the beach -- not one long consistent headache, thankfully, but every evening after spending as little time out of doors as possible I've still ended up with one -- but the kids are completely stir-crazy, not in camp till next week and I can't even order them to go outside and run around between 10 and 4.

Today, since the van was in being repaired in the morning, we went out for California Tortilla for a late lunch and then upon discovering that Over the Hedge is no longer playing anywhere near here, went to see POTC:DMC again. The kids asked for it, honestly! I must admit that I have a new favorite line and a new favorite hilarious moment this time around, now that I caught the details: The line was Jack's to Elizabeth when he thought she was a boy who wanted to join his crew and she said she was there to follow her true love: "I'm deeply flattered, son, but my first and only love is the sea." And the hilarious moment is Jack the shish kebab, which was hilarious last time too but this time I kept hearing John Cleese explaining what to do when you are attacked by a fruit! Because the movie has given me bunnies:


One of the rabbits of Bethany Beach, lounging outside the condo where we stayed.


Once it realized we knew it was there, it took off to eat grass in a nearby ditch.

Had minor crisis with parents regarding last-minute Bar Mitzvah invitations. Ran into friends of theirs at the movies, people and I like very much, sister and brother-in-law of another friend of my parents who is already invited. Told mother I wanted them on the list. Mother has been in a weird position because father can't stand her best friend's husband, who admittedly has done some very horrible things -- father refused to have him at the Bar Mitzvah even though I wanted mother's friend, had offered to invite her just coming from me and her daughter with whom I went to school. Apparently parents argued it out because now they are saying to invite them as well as the people we ran into at the movies. And now I think we are utterly done with invitations!

Let's see. I could talk about Israel but pretty much all coverage except Tikkun's makes me cry for one reason or another. I could talk about -- surprise! -- the discovery that federal funds for crisis pregnancy centers are being used to tell women who choose to terminate pregnancies that they're going to die of breast cancer if they don't kill themselves first from "post-abortion syndrome." But, you know, I think I'd rather think about pirates.