Sleeping Into Art \ Yet The Mock-Orange Still Blooms

Nancy:  So much ink!  So indelible!

Sleeping Into Art

While the poet sleeps

the pen wicks ink

and her nightgown blooms

with Himalayan lakes

Rorschach tests

The Dragon and the Phoenix

encompassing wisdom.

Freed of the rigidity

of words, the pen

glides on

fulfilling its potential

on and on

a Japanese screen

a garden lush with camellias

far archipelagos.

The poet is sleeping

sleeping

     on and on

the pen slips to the floor.

Alan:  After enough years in a small town, we half-know so many people.  They lend their names to the land, at least for awhile, until all sign and memory of them fades.

Yet The Mock-Orange Still Blooms

That’s Bill’s place.

Gone – what? –

ten years? fifteen?

They say he fell asleep

smoking.  On oxygen,

too.  Bad combination.

Went quick.

Left a black space,

charred out

between the road

and the woods.

No one cleaned it up.

Old green garage

to the side,

untouched.  Small.

Hardly room for a car,

tractor maybe.

Last winter it finally

went.  Roof down.

Just two walls now,

leaning in.

Oh, and that shed.

Back there under the trees.

You wouldn’t notice

without a good look.

Last thing standing.

Old.  Eyes

not too good. 

Drove slow.

Way over on the right.

Took his wife around.

Guess she was lame.

Used to pull up

to the mailbox.

She’d open

the window,

grab the mail.

Then he’d swing left

across the road

into the dooryard.

One time, toward dark,

he didn’t see the other car.

T-boned.  Killed her.

He wasn’t hurt.

Stayed on there

‘til the end.

Never knew him much.

Just to say hi to,

around the neighborhood.

Wonder who else

drives by, thinks,

“That’s old Bill’s place. 

Gone now – what –

ten years, fifteen?”