“… Hide me in the shadow of your wings.” ~ Psalm 17:8
We wake when the light has touched
the window-blinds, or to the sound
of wheels skimming early across asphalt.
And it is as though another day opens,
one door among many in passageways so long,
even the industry of carpenter ants might
falter. It is so hard to heft a pannier
of provisions from one gallery
to the next— But sometimes I think
I glimpse a familiar figure up ahead, robed
in saffron: gesturing Get up, shoulder
the load; keep pace, keep moving along.
Time teaches a lighter tread: or
the body bound to gravity must shed
layer after layer. What progress is tracked,
comes only in the manner of what’s discarded:
powdery frass, fine shavings of wood
highlighting paths we’ve tunneled.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Aperture
- Familiar
- Landscape, with Ruby-Throated Hummingbird
- Prognosis
- Listings
- Grenadilla
- Aubade
- El Sagrado Corazon
- Consolation
- Three (More) Improvisations
- Reconnaissance
- The Gift
- Goldfinch in the Garden
- Talon
- What Cannot Eat
- Happiness
- Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser
- Defense
- Petition to Fullness
- Heart you Want to Lead in from the Cold
- Unending Lyric
- Trace
- Prospecting
- Dear modest four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath
- Shit
- Ode to the Pedicure Place at the Mall
- Defiler
- Letter to Attention
- Real
- Discordant
- Dowsing
- Landscape, with Incipient Questions
- Letter to Stone
- Orison
- Milagrito: Eye of the Raven
- Epithalamium
- What You Don’t Always See
- The Road of Imperfect Attentions
- Going to the Acupuncturist in the Market
- Migrant Letters
- In the Country of Lost Hours
- Morning Lesson
- Reprieve
- Song of the Seamstress’s Daughter
- Landscape, with Construction Worker, Ants, and Gull
- End Times
- Dream Landscape, with Ray-bans and Leyte Landing
- Pantoum, with Spiderweb and Raindrops
- Assassin’s Wake
- Shroud Villanelle
- Dear Annie Oakley,
- Landscape, with Red Omens
- Late Summer Landscape, with Twilight and Daughters
- Ghazal of Unattainable Silence
- Try
- Occasional
- Distance, Then
- Turning
- Noon Prayer
- Acompañamiento
- In the Convent of Perpetual Adoration
- State of Emergency
- Storm Warning
- Charms
- Goodbye, Irene
- The Lovers
- Currents
- Dream of the Four Directions
- Chainus
- Lost Lyric
- Dear recklessness, dear jeweled
- Gleaning
- Bearing Fire
- The Summer of the Angel of Death
- Veneer
Its meditative thoughtfulness is enlightening. Bravo, Luisa.
DISCARDED DAYS
What have we discarded cutting through tunnels
we must have plodded to quarry from lives we
might have been accidentally given? What loves
have we found, what hearts have we lost? Layers
of clay, cracked stones, and silt could build us our
houses of hurts and ruptured dreams. Not a home.
But we take care to wake up to days we can shape,
to moments we could mould like delicate bowls
whence we share victual and drink for our hungry
and thirsty souls. When travel becomes a burden
of faithlessness or pain, we call each other out:
Be brave, hold on, take on the world if we must!
When these passageways fall dark, we walk on.
After all, our lives are not made of discarded days.
—Albert B. Casuga
07-31-11
Fine poem, Luisa! I liked the imagery, and it’s probably the first time I have ever seen the word “frass” used in a poem.
Thanks, Larry. I loved being able to use “frass” here.