By Charlie Smith
Apprentice morning come easily now,
silver with fog and the breakdowns
of neighbors: shouts from up hill
where the land curls under vines and under the porches
of oaks, where even now
wintergreen and inkberry shiver forth
streamers of new growth, and the green frogs
suck at the dew and sing their bent songs.
It is easy
to hear my own voice in the liquid
contraltos of rage, the vents
and accusations that feed fires
up the hill. It is all human enough,
the yelling, capacious
and frank, the doors slamming, cries
of betrayal. I too have betrayed,
lost my place among the condensations
of commitment, dallied.
I go among friends
who say with neither fear nor fury in their voices
that they too don’t know what’s next, that from the studied
impactment of their lives
they have sallied small lines
of proposition, made a few calls. Slight affairs
shiver and fail; we go for a walk
by the rotunda, where, on the perishable lawn,
a band plays Dixieland—speaking,
not earnestly, but with steady intent,
of the play of choices, the simple chance
of another future somewhere else, perhaps a house
in the hills above L.A., part-time work
for the screen, a few avocado trees. For a while
it is as if the hazy play of evening light,
the splashes of music, the unbundled oaks
surrounding the Square, are enough
in themselves to sustain, as if mood
is itself sustenance, that our struggle to conceive
a continuance is of no more moment
than the fuchsia and soft yellow clothes of the tourists.
Perhaps it is possible
to be gentle no matter what, to seek not restraint
but surrender entirely, to turn
from the snarling reproach not into the keening
dismissal of hope but to whatever bright
fluttering is next, the bright fluttering
of wisteria petals, a felicitous
phrase, fingers touching
a face. How else to avoid
redemption,
or its opposite, which we stopped believing
in one day in high school, suddenly startled
over a steaming lunch tray by the way the fizzed
flowers of a stunted mimosa
seemed to beg for release? We realized then
we could say whatever we wanted, that the world
was no more particular
than anything else, it too could be out-argued,
confused by refusal or lies, that it was no wonder
people were stunned
by the eloquent permanence of death.
So there is
permission, not granted
but given, as a forsythia at the edge of the walk,
having stolen more light
than it can contain, trembles, and the echoes
of argument fade into a fluttering
over the price of butterscotch floats,
and we are dazzled
by the gouge of perception, as if there was in fact a word
we were waiting to hear, not
as completion but as synoptic
and inevitable entitlement—the drift
of some stranger’s conversation,
the memory of a thin mist
moored temporarily over the garden, that face
we saw from the window on the way to St. Albans: beautiful,
indifferent, unequivocably doomed.
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Paul worked from home again on Tuesday because we had a busy day at home dealing with house crises. First, the eco-friendly pest removers came to get rid of the nest of invasive stinging devils, though Paul had told the pest company he thought they were wasps even though I had told him I thought they were hornets, and as soon as the guy saw that I was right, he almost decided to wait and come back with a heavier anti-sting suit. As it happened, he was able to smoke out the hornets and smash the nest with no loss of limb, and hopefully the afternoon rain means they scattered and won't come back because he said we might see angry stragglers for a few hours looking for the nest.
In the afternoon, the company our insurance sent put tarps on the roof where the damage was greatest. (We have to have the whole roof replaced at some point but this way we don't have to commit many thousands of dollars without proper time to get estimates and talk about options). So hopefully when it rains again tomorrow and the next day, since that's been the pattern this whole summer, we won't have more flooding in the house. We only got out for a brief trip to Giant, and tomorrow I have more repair people coming to deal with the mold in the closet. At least The 100 season finale was good and we watched another episode of Burden of Truth, also not bad. Fuchsias from Bellevue Botanical Garden:
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