My adventures in cat-sitting officially end tomorrow afternoon, but it has been nice living in someone else's space and taking a vacation from my life. Here are some odds and ends I found while packing this afternoon:
On a post-it note:
this autumn
why am I aging so?
to the clouds, a bird
--Basho
And also this untitled collaborative poem Gabriella Torres and I wrote many years ago at The New School:
All day long I've been sorting through
the list, balancing the appropriate names.
Sometimes I feel this search will never end.
Sometimes I am one thousand birds circling
the frame--wings unclipped, the aching
a memory. This is a reflection
of the pixels in your hands, a time when red
was red and we were mechanical blue.
The dirt under your nails a small wound,
evidence of desire folding back on itself.
We are folding back on ourselves, on
the church doors, on dusk bells.
This homespun song, this sentiment:
a stained photograph, an ink spot
on a white dress. This movement
is a stained deliberation. I will hear your voice
in a dull knife, I will play this song again
and again until I am dressed up in red.
*
This poem has all the classic signs of my early New School work: birds, check; frames, check; overuse of "this," check; "this movement," check. Aching, memories, etc., check.
