Thursday, September 13, 2007

The sound of one shoe dropping

The other shoe, that is. It's been a hell of a few years in our household, between medical traumas of various kinds, including Kitty's anorexia, my mother-in-law's lingering illness and death, and now the legal machinations of her despicable and greedy second husband. (Who knew people could be such asshats?)

So now I'm down with some health problems of my own, hopefully not for too long and nothing permanent, but very unpleasant in the short term.

So forgive me if I don't do too much posting for a little while. Carry on.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Today's post is a poem

It's true: I cop to being a poet first and foremost.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: POEM FOR MY LATE FORTIES

See, one day I realized I was thinking about death
as if it were a problem I could solve, as if
through sheer brilliance, hard work, or luck
I could outwit my fate, land safe on solid ground.
So all of this, I mused—-the sweet blue sky,
the falling light, the dizzy bone-deep fix
of oxygen and sun and fire—-was plain
out of my hands. I was free, it seemed,

to keep on stumbling—-blind, confused,
ticked off—-up the old twisting path,
to reach the top at last and claim
my prize: to face the dark wood,
as the poet said, and, pissing
in my pants with fear, go on.

To be published in Oberon later this year