Woke up this morning with four hours
of sleep, resumed a vicious argument as
though not a second of rest had passed as
though only another breath of anger
and frustration had gone by, the
vehemence continued unabated as
they say and the angry eyes still
pierced and punctured years of trying
and trying and trying. Then I listened
to Shakespeare and read Hamlet in
time to the elliptical machine as an
hour went by. Another hour
with people hitting the pause button
to say hello and hello. Where ya been,
Bill? Then another touch to the button
and back in Denmark with the
sensitive, complicated prince who
tried and tried and died. Leaving the
gym the first snow flittered in my
imagination and then, no, it was real.
A friend said yuck, but to me those
little drifting things of water and ice were
the harbingers of a deep welcomed
cold coming along like inevitability, a
tune I can't get out of my head. I drove
to a friend's house, well more than a
friend I admit, she is a deep, deep
friend, a love pure, a rare love ...
anyway I went to look at her driveway,
her new driveway. The gas company
had dug a hole in her new driveway,
something nice ruined perhaps, but
after all those years of the old worn-
out crumbling driveway they couldn't
have dug that one up, no they had to
wait in the hiding place where all
those causes that wreck nice things
lurk, waiting for the moment to do
their passion-extinguishing, innervating
thing. I stared at the patched-over hole.
The tarmac was cold now, little first
flakes landing like children laughing
and disappearing, dissolving into
reality of a life they thought was one
thing, floating along through the fresh
air, and was actually something else,
smashing into the bad patch job of
crunching forces that take hopes and
digs them up and patches them over ugly,
stealing the perfection. Watching them
land on the patched driveway, I noticed
the air was still fresh despite the death
by the thousands of the new first snow
dropping everywhere around me,
disappearing never to come again. I
took a picture of it. Who knows why?
Then I got back in my car and drove
home listening to "I don't know where
I'm a gonna go when the volcano
blows."

11/19/2007

Posted on 09/24/2009
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