Walking out in the world

I've been walking at night lately--dusk really, when Alonso comes home from work, handing off the parental hat and lacing up my sneakers. A few minutes in the cold air and moonlight, breathing the sweet, pollen-filled breezes of late winter in Sonoma County, and I'm a little further outside myself, a little more rooted in the big world.


Consider the moon. These imperfect eyes
can examine craters, dry ocean beds,
shape a serene face in orbit. Never mind
the small dust storm of daily life. Never mind
your unfulfilled grocery list, laundry left unfolded.

Not yet dawn, awake with a fevered child. Asleep
with your eyes half open, murmur half a lullaby. The sky
a sudden pink, then back to gray. Birds lift off the bare
branched poplars, swirl ocean-bound.

It's the first sound you remember, a milk-drenched
overlay of your mother's voice and rain on the roof.
It rained most days from October to April, sun and snow
infrequent visitors. Now the rain falls on your own small roof.

The house a listing boat, in need of bailing.
The basement fills with water,
you read Noah's Arc over and over.

Poem of the week

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950). Renascence and Other Poems. 1917. Afternoon on a Hill I WILL be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
I will look at cliffs and clouds	5
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.
And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,	10
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down! Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)