Friday, November 24, 2006

What Yesterday Begets

The morning is quiet,
and we yet retain some
of the fine things we
once possessed, when
our kingdoms stretched
further, when the sun
found it difficult to
set on our dominion.

The morning is quiet,
sun bright if not strong,
air crisp if not clean,
the eyes we meet at the
mirror alert enough and
only a little bloodshot,
and the pain in our joints
is no worse than the
average as we climb the
stairs and set off to
work again.

The morning is not now
quite so quiet, but it is
serene enough for our
purposes, outside the
retail grind, outside the
press of overenthusiastic
deficit spending that seems
the way of the year, and
yes, we can be content
with the remainder, with
the quiet death of the
work week and the half
empty office here, the
small and repetitive tasks
we must engage before
we show them our backs.

The afternoon slower than
morning, yet again quiet,
and we eat the food we can
afford the money and time for,
but not before the inevitable
trip to the money machine,
the inevitable erosion of our
funding, the dollars dying like
brain cells within the minds of
lending institutions.

The evening is quiet, and we
yet retain the vague outlines
of our birthright, the twilight
going down to autumn's
harbinger spikes of frost as
we navigate the roads
homeward, minds not contained
by our bodies, souls not contained
within our lives but still
flying the easy air of our
ground effect, and though
the best territory for us is
confined to the theoretical
magic of sleep, we retain
enough to be thankful.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah yes life goes on day after day. There is the repetitive and the mundane, but intersperced in all of this is our individual contentments. It is a good thing that I don't have to.."climb the stairs".. as my joints seem stiffer as the weather chills and time trods inexorably on. It is good that there is always something I can be thankful for, even in the waking hours.

Anonymous said...

Yeah! This poem makes me feel comfortable as it speaks of routine with a certain amount of acceptance even as it leaves our thoughts free to roam.

M. Shahin said...

Reading this poem had the same effect of watching days pass by - you crafted the words to a nice effect. It definitely has that repetitive rhythm to it. Nice job!

I loved these lines:

"we navigate the roads
homeward, minds not contained
by our bodies, souls not contained
within our lives but still
flying the easy air of our
ground effect, and though
the best territory for us is
confined to the theoretical
magic of sleep, we retain
enough to be thankful."

'Souls not contained within our lives'- I believe that and that there is more than this world.
As for the sleep, I wrote a similar poem regarding that - how sleep is sometimes our only escape and how we don't ever want to awake to face reality again when sleeping. These lines expressed it so much better though.

Thanks for sharing; another one of my favorites :-)

Anonymous said...

I liked this one a lot. I like the gradual transition from the high level of kingdoms and dominion to the quotidian level of stairs, deficit spending and joint pain. The transition itself helps to convey that feeling of being ground down by the every-dayness of it all, the sheer boring nature of life-work-sleep. And then I liked again how the last stanza takes you back to the idea of spiritual or mental freedom in spite of it all.

Y'know, you're awfully jaded for one of tender years. You're like Yeats that way. They say he wrote like he was old in his youth, then like a young man when he was older.

I had a little of this myself, I guess. I was very serious when I was younger, and the older I get, the sillier I get. I imagine soon I'll be reduced to fart jokes and turning my eyelids inside out. SIGH.

Patrick M. Tracy said...

Bobby,

I guess the big thing here is this: We aren't what we're doing, we are what we're thinking. There's a song by Morphine called, "Head with Wings". That's me. When I'm waiting for something, when things are dull, I just float away.

Doc,

You gotta have room to roam!

m. shahin,

I'm glad you enjoyed the poem. I thought the rhythm in this one worked fairly well, and I'm glad you felt it. Always happy to share.

Rachel,

Don't knock fart jokes. Their enduring popularity must signify something, right?

"Tender years?". Sheesh. You should have seen me when I was younger. I was older then. I've become much sillier. I'm not sure if the condition is getting worse, but I'll watch out for it. No turning my eyelids inside out, though. That squicks me.

Thanks, everybody, for coming over.

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