seasons

Waiting

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I am waiting
for spring to emerge
from the pavement
laid for
work, business, invoicing,
fee discussions and
constant demand.

I am waiting
for cracks to widen
suddenly and maybe
even causing
horror filled with wonder
as I fall in-
side out.

I am waiting
for you and for them,
and for looking back
bewildered on
the past order,
full of tired and
worn-in happiness.

Note: This poem is from the ‘poetry retreat series’.  We read ‘I am Waiting’ by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and were asked to write a poem in six minutes about something we were waiting for. This is unfinished and I would like to go back to it and bring the image of ‘breaking through’ into greater clarity and power.

falling – commentary

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I don’t know whether I want to write commentary on my poems, but I am trying it out here.

This week I have noticed that lots of old routines and facets of my life are changing or disintegrating.  I am back to writing my book after a long time away with my business work, my colleague is on maternity leave, my favourite café is no longer home, some friends are moving, some are in new relationships, and I have been trying to write daily for extraplorer, which has caused its own twenty-first century vertigo,  even my hairdresser might be changing.

Everyday this week I have felt disorientated.  I wake up, and can’t quite pin down who I am.  I am having to train myself back into the routines that serve as anchors to my everyday life.  Sometimes I forget the things that create stability or peace or connection and productivity and it’s like I have to reinvent or rediscover them.

I love the phrase ‘ontological lightness’; it means a kind of insubstantiality of being.  This week I have felt insipid, more of a breeze than a person, tipped about by circumstances.

But really this is only partial reality.  It’s more in my head than in my legs.  If I stay still for a few minutes, like right now, essence of me starts to fill up and I feel like myself again.

It’s the essence of me that is linked to the essence of the old oak in the poem ‘falling’.  Leaves falling have an ontological lightness; they will decay and fade, but the inner reality of the tree, and the reality of the acorns which although perhaps not visible to the tree do exist in the world, are full of substance.  Very full, and overflowing with life, which will become again visible through the buds of spring.

So once again, patience.

falling

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There comes a point in time in the life of a
brave old oak
when its cloak
gives way,
bit by bit,
to wind, to rain, to age, to the
inevitable pull of
seasons.

When its much loved array
of green and gold
leaves it, forever,
to the nakedness of
cold.

When its acorns, once full of
anticipated joys, of life,
of potential, of
infinity,
are entirely gone.

When even its very last cherished leaf,
the one to which it finally
clings with all its might,
takes flight.

Then the voices in the winds wuther:
‘Call yourself an oak?
Where’s your cloak?’
‘Where are your acorns?’
‘You’re a joke.’

And so the old oak stands,
vulnerable and grey,
lashed by storms
and frost and even
heavy with snow.

And hopes.

my favourite café is dying – my library is alive

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Yesterday I did something unheard of.

Instead of making my the café where I have gone to write for the last x number of years, a café so well-loved and frequented that I believe I may have worn a groove in the paths from my home to its threshold, I went to the library.

It had been little while coming.  First they painted the beautiful big communal room dark blue.  It altered the quality of the light, made it always a little bit sombre.  Then slowly slowly things changed.  The low-energy light bulbs cast less light.  The manager moved on and the new one…. Well, these things happen.  He introduced fresh flowers but when I visited they were always dead.  Then one by one the staff abandoned ship.  I saw the way that things were leaning, I made calls, encouraged from the sidelines, Canute-like failing to hold back the approaching tide.  The replacement members of the team were sweet, but somehow insubstantial.  No history holds them together.  And then on Monday, with the wifi more wi-foe, and the toilets neglected and the broken lightbulbs not replaced, and the cookie turned to dust…

That was it.  We had broken up.  A hastily proffered replacement cookie disintegrated into crumbs on my walk home.   There was no more left to say.

My city is not well-provided for cafés with large airy spaces and happy staff and a perfect cup of tea.  Too many are haunted by the spirit of the formula.  Faith has been put in track-records and not enough in the personal.  But insinuating itself into my consciousness had been the reopening of our library.

I hadn’t gone to the opening; couldn’t bear the potential disappointment of seeing old, worn, wabi-sabi beauty trashed by a new-kid-on-the-block.  So my visit yesterday was my first.  I tiptoed over the threshold, breath held, hands metaphorically in front of my eyes, peeking, and – sigh of relief – it was beautiful.  Not quite old-leather-armchairs-beautiful, but really, quite extraordinarily home and familiarity and sit-down-with-your-book-ish.

So armed with tea (yes, allowed in a travel cup), I took my place by a vast window, looking out to a park rustled by autumn winds, and I wonder about the change of seasons.