Too nice a drunk
locking up my bike in front of the store
a babbling drunk approached me
I wanted to withdraw
but he said
listen
you forgot
to pat your steed after the ride
I was startled but obeyed
pat-pat-pat
went my hand on the seat
approval flashed in the drunk’s eyes:
listen
you’re young and pretty
but don’t you go
sitting on the ground
before spring thunder
I had a sweetheart once
Signe
young and pretty too
but y’see she didn’t listen
and was ugly and ill afore long
I looked upon the drunk
grey-stubbled face
missing most of his teeth
(though his words weren’t toothless at all)
but his eyes
were long-lashed
handsome blue kind
that drunk had been a little boy once
for whom purses were searched for candy
people said
what a boy
what eyelashes
like a doll’s
his mother’s pride and joy
too kind unfortunately
I thought as I patted my bike
before the ride
and spurred it on our way
mounting the saddle once more
and speeding off
but the drunk sat down
on the ground in front of the store
long before
the first spring thunder
But someday a slow time will start
perhaps on a
Friday night following frenetics and frenzy
when I find in my mailbox a ticket
for constant speeding
and you know what:
you’ve got a several-year debt of silence
we’d ask you to pay
at first opportunity
otherwise we may stop or constrain
or even permanently shut down
then the morning must dawn at last
when I wake up only by daylight
gather the alarm clock’s fallen hands
and sticks from my head
with those I’ll light the wood-burning stove
all is only budding
I greet titmice tick- to tockteen minutes
then put stews on the stove
oxtail soup set to quiver
until the broth turns gluish from fat
leg of lamb in the oven for eternity
beans are already soaking
the slowest
dishes
of all
there’s time for grinding spices
for waiting while
caraway and cardamom
surrender their deepest secrets
boiling and baking
become a whole day’s doing
I no longer put up with
wiping out my initial appetite
by gobbling
I want to feel every mouthful
reaching atoms
nourishing and replenishing them
there’s time for chatting with plasma
time for healing old pains
not merely for swiftly silencing them
when I’ve finally smeared scented lanolin
down to the tip of my toes
so that from then on all excess
can simply slide away
I can, I start a treatise
in praise of slowness:
bodily speed depends on the frame of reference
by which speed is measured
> Speed-proof, water- and whistle-resistant,
breathable gore-tex me
*
To be awake and still
so early
when day has appeared for us again
a day like driftwood
on the shore of all days
new and old alike
to be stiller than still
and grasp what is tinier than tiny –
that when silence has become and stayed our jewel
you might even hear how
garden snail penetrates dandelion leaves
to be so still
you might notice anemone’s grace
blossom from last year’s waste
might divine –
no doubt abundance will one day tower
above each ache
to be truly still
so anticipation holier than holy
might elevate us
so the light of old worlds
might shine
and the hope of the new be perceived
(diminuendo)
so we might finally realize
there is no final silence:
only a suspending pause
and then a beginning again
(piano pianissimo)
to be so awake and still
to believe
every wingbeat affects
and beetle-prayer
(sotto voce)
to be still even yet
when the day has just gone
but to plead before sleep:
save us
save us from empty clamor
Night sparks candles on the chestnut tree
air sings in imaginary tongue
a gust through the open window is knowledge
that both our irises
blossomed in synchrony
on this night
I suppose I think about you
in imaginary tongue
for everything thickens around me
forming a single word
that I don’t yet know
nor dare say aloud
