Haze

mutes the light today, but the carpet of yellow leaves reflects it back, bright from the ground.

What the Living Do

From What the Living Do by Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down
there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it
off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss--we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

Too Many

by David Baker


my neighbors
say, when what they mean
          are deer—the foragers, the few at a time, fair

if little more
than rats, according to
          a farmer friend nearby, whose corn means plenty.

They nip the peaches,
and one bite ruins;
          hazard every road with their running-

into-headlights-
not-away; a
          menace; plague; something should be done.

          Or here in town,
where I’ve
          found a kind of afterlife—the townies hate

the damage to their varie-
gated hostas,
          shadeside ferns—what they do inside white bunkers of

the county’s one good
course is “criminal,”
          deep scuffs through the sand—that’s one thing—but

lush piles of polished-
olive-droppings, hoof-
          ruts in the chemically- and color-enriched greens…

          Yet here’s
one more, curled
          like a tan seashell not a foot from my blade, just-

come-to-the-
world fawn, speckled,
          wet as a trout, which I didn’t see, hacking back

brush beneath my tulip
poplar—it’s not afraid,
          mews like a kitten, can’t walk—there are so many, too

many of us,
the world keeps saying,
          and the world keeps making—this makes no sense—
          more.

Evening song

Neighbor children run back and forth across the yards, feign a collective scream at the sound of me as I open the front windows, all giggles as they reach their porch again, their home. I stand close to the window and breathe, the sound of traffic rushing in now as the light fades, the sound of crickets, rising louder.

Late to bed.

The earliest hours of September and there is a satisfying chill in the house. I walk the length of the kitchen, cold linoleum under my feet, tug the aging pull light into darkness.

Starting again, again.

Writing in this space feels a little strange. Is anyone reading? Does anyone still read blogs? Do people still read blogs that aren't really about anything in particular?

It feels like picking up an old high school journal: that bashful feeling of not really wanting to look through all the pages and see those thoughts again, feel those thoughts again. And the overwhelming feeling that so very much has happened to this distant person I'm reading about. How many times have I written (between age 14 and now) that life doesn't turn out the way you've imagined?

Hundreds at least.

This past year or so has hit hard.

Not in an all-at-once kind of way, but a slow creep I've tried to ignore. So, here I am finding my way back to the keyboard not because I really know what I have to say but because I know I'm going to need this, these words of mine, my reality, my medicine, my way of fitting myself into the world.

I'm preparing.

I don't know that I can explain it any other way (with my rusty, haven't-been-writing brain) but I'm going back to what I know, back to the least of what I know because oh, am I going to need this. Whatever this is. However this is. It's mine.