The small daily poems I've set myself to write this year are gradually being removed to a new blog (click to find): My Book of Days.
Small stones are meant to be outward-looking, whereas my daily poems have become more and more self-reflective, so I decided they don't belong here but need a blog of their own.
It’s the basics, I discover,
which become important to me
now that I’m old — the anticipation
of my simple evening meal,
its familiar tastes a matter
of supreme interest. It’s not that my mind
can’t rise to other considerations.
The flights of fancy, too, still happen.
It’s just that my personal comfort,
which takes longer now, prevails.
To be shared with Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #70: Discovery.
I nurture myself
with good memories –
places / times / people –
and with the present:
the young woman next door,
an artist, who tells me my face
(‘my old face!’ I think) is beautiful
and draws it so;
my little cat, who gives me
so many opportunities for loving …
I wake up far too early and cry,
then bury myself in a fantasy novel
with an anti-hero who reminds me
of the man who died a long time ago.
I come to the end of the tale over breakfast,
close the book and remember to be glad
about yesterday’s State election result …
trying to pretend to ingest slowly
that knowledge I swallowed whole, late last night
of another old friend, dear and dying.
My Tarot card for today: 10 of Cups –
fulfilment, happiness, peace
in large measure. I hope
that means the State election
turns out the way I want.
I hope the way I hope
turns out to be well-based
in the long run, I hope …
Today brings another visitor, dressed
in an orange top, the colour of joy,
and a skirt with a geometric pattern,
squares of orange and turquoise —
from the op shop, she says, and I say
of course. We all get our gear
from there. Very good gear, too.
She’s at home here, knowing she’s free
to invite herself ... sprawl on the couch
like a comfortable cat, or a sister.
Maureen drops in to see how I’m going.
No, she doesn’t need coffee. We sit and talk,
laugh, discuss books, other friends, our families,
and what a sad disappointment our latest PM
has turned out to be post-honeymoon – in bed
with the fossil fuel providers, just like all the rest.
Still, we part feeling better. Friendships are always
such joy, even in the face of large disasters.
This is one of the series of daily short poems I'm doing this year as a kind of diary or 'Book of Days'. I just realised it fits quite nicely with this week's Friday Writings prompt #69: Darkness and Light, at Poets and Storytellers United.
