Archive
06/23/09 - (1)
Recess
Out back of our twenty-two-story apartment building, We have a very comforting parklike area, above the garages, With a spacious grassy oval
Rimmed by a gravel walking path Opening onto manicured flower gardens, lining the square perimeter, Burgeoning with myriad bright-yellow daffodils.
Many mornings and afternoons, I sit out there, At a patio table, under an umbrella, in a wrought-iron chair, Staring off into space, gazing back on my past,
Just letting the hours arrive and fade, And I drift in and out of my peaceful memories, reveries, Like a shuttle weaving old dreams into immediate realities.
I've grown old, almost overnight, it seems, Which, I suppose, is nothing new to humanity. It's the nature of the beast. I wax philosophic.
But these past five days of late June, The oppressive heat and egregiously suffocating humidity Have conspired to keep me inside. I can't breathe.
A prairie fire roars across my lungs' plains, When I so much as step foot outdoors. I'm reconciled to sitting in my east-facing bedroom window,
Staring toward the river, through the hazy shimmer, Peering down at my favorite patch of earth, My oval within a square — my own Albers Homage.
I get tired of being confined to this familiar apartment, Not because I've lived here thirty-five years But because taking the air clears my vapors, cobwebs,
Digs out the stubborn claustrophobia That flourishes in my mind, like the weeds in those beds. Summer and winter revitalize me, when I'm outside.
All week, severe heat warnings have been in effect. The radio and newspapers, like Big Brother, Are cautioning old people to stay put. I'm in that cohort.
All I can do is watch the sprinklers, far down below, From 5:30 to 7:00, in the early a.m., And again, between 7:30 and 9:00, at night,
The seven that sweep, in broad arcs, within the oval, And the fifteen placed evenly apart, along its brick rim, Which turn in tight circles. They mesmerize me,
Create glistening rainbows in my blurry eyes. Losing myself, in my air-conditioned bedroom, isn't the same. As I did in grade school, I crave recess on the playground.
06/23/09 - (1)
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