Poem for Friday and Neighborhood Walk

Worldling
By Elizabeth Spires

In a world of souls, I set out to find them.
They who first must find each other,
be each other's fate.
There, on the open road,
I gazed into each traveler's face.
Is it you? I would ask.
Are you the ones?
No, no, they said, or nothing at all.

How many cottages did I pass,
each with a mother, a father,
a firstborn, newly swaddled, crying;
or sitting in its little chair,
dipping a fat wooden spoon
into a steaming bowl,
its mother singing it a foolish song,
One, one, a lily's my care...

Through seasons I searched,
through years I can't remember,
reading the lichens and stones
as if one were marked
with my name, my face, my form.
By night and day I searched,
never sleeping, not wanting to fail,
not wanting to simply be a star.

Finally in a town like any other town,
in a house foursquare and shining,
its door wide open to the moon,
did I find them.

There, at the top of the winding stairs,
asleep in the big bed,
the sheets thrown off, curled
like question marks into each other's arms.

Past memory, I beheld them,
naked, their bodies without flaw.
It is I, I whispered.
I, the nameless one.
And my parents, spent by the dream
of creation, slept on.

--------

We had a warm, sticky day on Thursday, which I got to enjoy outdoors quite a bit. Before lunch I met a neighbor for a Pokemon raid in the neighborhood, where it's fairly easy to socially distance, and we walked back toward our houses afterward discussing our kids and education and the surprise delightful Supreme Court DACA decision of the morning. We had a big rainstorm, then in the afternoon I took my camera to try to take photos of the baby birds that hatched in my cat-sitter's bird house; I couldn't get enough light to focus, but since I had the camera, I walked through the woods path and around the neighborhood:















You can see the tailless squirrel who lives somewhere along the woods path, and one of two deer that were pretty unafraid of us until another neighbor approached walking a dog, plus the fish pond frog and butterflies in the lilies. We had leftover shepherd's pie for dinner with haroset, which we've decided we should eat far more often than just Passover. Then we watched this week's Burden of Truth (really good this season, though I hope they talk more specifically about the First Nations issues) and Blindspot (I'm so sick of Madeline and wish they'd give them a little more fun this final season), plus NatGeo on European geology.