You are waiting for the next thing to be popular so you can admit how much you’ve come to loathe the last thing. But with this economy, who knows whether there will even be a next thing? That last thing might be the last thing ever, in which case you will someday come to miss it with all the fervent conviction of nostalgia.
tea for two
the ant holding a crumb
above her head
my hands ache to be calloused from monkey bars once again
those old frenemies of mine
cold hard metal that turns slick beneath sweating palms
excited
to move to the next bar and the next and the next
turning around once you've finished and going again
proud
egged on by the cheers of kids who marvel at your strength
heart thumping from something other than
fear
but i am grown
and grownups cannot play on playgrounds anymore
The snow's falling.
Slower...faster..hurricane.
Led by the song of the wind.
Faster. Slower...Stop.
Gosh, I wish you were here.
The snow's changing.
Pearly, white... innocent.
Silence in a hurry without a worry.
Light, whole, covered.
Oh! I can almost feel your warmth on my feverish body.
The snow's hiding.
Always. Awaking. The silence.
Nostalgia comes to life.
Over. And over. Again.
And I'm still yearning.
my memories hold machines
the wall lighting up as a car
cruised by our house
and i was happy
high up a buzzing plane in the
hot empty blueness motors
sputtering on lakes
the long car journeys to the
city school with car rugs
the big orange busses leaning
around corners or to
the rolling hills
those old ironing machines
for sheets -
are machines romantic
after all? I've wanted them
Wind, just arisen--
(Off what cool mattress of marsh-moss
In tented boughs leaf-drawn before the stars,
Or niche of cliff under the eagles?)
You of living things,
So gay and tender and full of play--
Why do you blow on my thoughts--like cut flowers
Gathered and laid to dry on this paper, rolled out of dead wood?
I see you
Shaking that flower at me with soft invitation
And frisking away,
Deliciously rumpling the grass...
So you fluttered the curtains about my cradle,
Prattling of fields
Before I had had my milk...
Did I stir on my pillow, making to follow you, Fleet One?
Heavens above! here’s an old tie of yours--
Sea-green dragons stamped on a golden ground.
Ha! Ha! Ha! What children we were in those days.
Do you love me enough to wear it now?
Have you the courage of your pristine glories?
Ha! Ha! Ha! You laugh and shrug your shoulders.
Those were the days when a new tie spelt a fortune:
We wore it in turn--I flaunted it as a waist-belt.
Ha! Ha! Ha! What easily satisfied babies.
“I think I’ll turn it into a piano duster.”
“Give it to me, I’ll polish my slippers on it!”
Ha! Ha! Ha! The rag’s not worth the dustbin.
“Throw the shabby old thing right out of the window;
Fling it into the faces of other children!”
Ha! Ha! Ha! We laughed and laughed till the tears came!
By the old toy cabinet,
I stand and turn over dusty things:
Chessmen--card games--hoops and balls--
Toy rifles, helmets, swords,
In the far corner
A doll's tea-set in a box.
Where are you, golden child,
Who gave tea to your dolls and me?
The golden child is growing old,
Further than Rome or Babylon
From you have passed those foolish years.
She lives--she suffers--she forgets.
By the old toy cabinet,
I idly stand and awkwardly
Finger the lock of the tea-set box.
What matter--why should I look inside,
Oh ! for the welcome breath of country air,
With Summer skies and flowers,
To shout and feel once more the halcyon
Of gayer boyhood hours.
I think the sight of fields and shady lanes
Would ease my heart of pains.
To cool once more my thirst, where bubbled up
The waters of a spring,
Where I have seen the golden daffodils
And lillies flourishing.
My fevered heart would more than half forget
Its sighs, and vain regret.
Far, far away, from early scenes am I ;
And, too, my youth has fled;
For me a stranger's land, a stranger's sky.
That arches overhead.
Gay hollyhocks with flaming bells
And waving plumes, as gently swells
The breeze upon the Summer air;
You bind me still with magic spells
When to the wind, in grave farewells,
You bow in all your graces fair.
You bring me back the childhood view,
Where arching skies and deepest blue
Stretch on in endless lengths above;
To see you so awakes anew
Long past emotions, from which grew
My wild and first heart-throbs of love.
There is in all your brilliant dyes.
Your gorgeousness and azure skies,
A joy like soothing summer rain;
Yet in the scene there vaguely lies
Old Lohan peers through the dusty glass,
From a jumble of curios quaint and rare;
And he watches the hurrying crowds that pass
The whole day long, through the ancient square.
Wrapped in his robe of gold and jade,
Here by the window he patiently waits
For the sound that the gongs and the conches made,
In the days of old at the temple gates.
He heaves no sighs and he sheds no tears,
For his heart is bronze, and he does not know
That his temple has been for a thousand years
But a mound of dust where the bamboos grow.
So here he sits through the nights and the days,
And the sun goes up and down the sky;
But he often looks with a wistful gaze
At the crowds that always pass him by.
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the
tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who
smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter
outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano
our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The
glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Oh something just now must be happening there!
That suddenly and quiveringly here,
Amid the city’s noises, I must think
Of mangoes leaning o’er the river’s brink,
And dexterous Davie climbing high above,
The gold fruits ebon-speckled to remove,
And toss them quickly in the tangled mass
Of wis-wis twisted round the guinea grass;
And Cyril coming through the bramble-track
A prize bunch of bananas on his back;
And Georgie--none could ever dive like him--
Throwing his scanty clothes off for a swim;
And schoolboys, from Bridge-tunnel going home,
Watching the waters downward dash and foam.
This is no daytime dream, there’s something in it,
Oh something’s happening there this very minute!