"The miracles of nature do not seem miracles because they are so common. If no one had ever seen a flower, even a dandelion would be the most startling event in the world."

Monday, November 22, 2010

A Little Perspective on Monday

A friend shared this link and this poem. It's so mesmerizing that I would almost prefer to post it alone, but must instead comment just to say, I'm looking at that hated pile of things on the stairs, and maybe the noise, quite differently today.

Aubade

In the half-light, before the workday stir,
three strips contour her body, cross the bed
and this dull morning seems a watershed
with me indifferent to the sight of her

as, with her sleeping eyes, she is to me.
Once I had rockclimber’s hands: worn thin,
one layer more naked, they’d sense her skin
aware an inch away, like witchery,

yet over years hands callous with the wear
of touching her, and fierceness seems absurd
as does delusion when the fever’s cured,
and the strong arch our marriage made won’t bear

a tower to our passion, or a child’s home.
Instead there’s empty stairs and controlled climate,
too many books, too much reason for quiet
where something squalling with life might have grown.

I stand in the door, neither there nor gone;
through blinds the sun insinuates its way,
casting a chart of the approaching day
where I should lie, and where her arm is thrown.

-Peter Coghill

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