Failing Grace
A woman invented poetry
and called it agriculture. We got the
call (two calls) this afternoon
-how about one last transfusion of
words, before you go? Holding back
the Doomsday clock with just a
scrap of verse. Did you finally swallow
that piece of gum? And ransoming that soldier
with a Bronx short story, who would have
thought?
This week, my son carried a book 1/5th
his weight up over Mount Greylock, just
to have something to read. This week, I
had to put on spectacles, at last. Just
as you thought, the headlines are fading. All my
dog-eared penguins are coming home to
roost. We live in words in the world in worlds in
the words. But where do you live now?
Oh, Grace, it IS later the same day.
Much, much later.