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I lie on my couch on the verandah,
She on hers inside. We read our books, hers
About a daughter who suddenly falls
Into a coma and a mother's worry, written
By the mother biding time until the inevitable arrives.
My book is about political philosophy -
The meaning of the good life.
I get up from my couch, walk past her to the kitchen
To fill my glass as if everything's already been said.
The air is August thick;
The fan's head whizzes back and forth NOOO NOOO.
Sailboats slice toward us and away through pixelating waves,
Fishing boats look for the right spot to anchor and wait.
Thirty years we've done this together, or some version of it.
Our kids say this is still their favourite place in the whole world
As they make lives elsewhere.
My wife drifts off to sleep,
Her book splayed on her chest like a weary bird.
I sip my water, turn another page.
When she wakes my wife will say,
'I just had the weirdest dream',
and I'll ask, 'Was I in it?'
2 comments:
How shall I describe this? Bucolic? Yes, that could be the right descriptor, and enviably so, deliciously so! Brings to mind my childhood summers in the Catskills. But that was way in the past for me. Your poem brings together past, present and future; time lingers benevolently over the poem. Differet from the way most people experience time during the hectic work week.
I hadn't thought of the poem as 'bucolic', as in pastoral. But I think you nail it when you say it's about time. Going to the cottage for me is about slowing down the passage of time - it never fails, a day at the lake, even 24 hours, feels like a week. And a sense that maybe it can get so slow that there is a hint of eternity, as in a dream. Sometimes it does feel as if I'm in a dream, and usually it involves looking at my wife. I presume that's another word for love.
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