I do opine that a constant life, although agreeable in its construction and longevity, may render its subject without two sympathetic words to rub together.

1.  Your cornflower blue eyes crinkled and laughing, sometimes flashing like the storms you love to chase

2. Your strawberry blond mop that smelled nothing like fruit but instead of sweat and grime, clinging to your brow when you removed that Pepsi baseball cap

3. Easter egg hunts on your birthday, like plastic flowers in melted snow and you up trees and on the roof of grandma's garage

4. Rare compromises that built tree forts or wound up the tire swing until it bounced and whirled its passenger like a spinning top

5. When everything you did, I wanted to do too--whether it was rescuing the princess or flying an X-wing

6. Diddy and Dixie Kong headlocked and tangled in armpits, wrestling for the Super Nintendo controller or for the remote for the VCR until Donkey had enough and made them both watch Barney

7. The laughter of you and your friends from the basement or slipping around the corner, back when I said “Me too” and meant “include me”

8. Games of war crouched behind the couches when the only war you dreamt about was the one in Narnia

9. The cliff in Hawaii over the smoking volcanic ocean water and Mom screaming for you to come down

10. When you push me, like the dominoes you used to line up and watch devotedly as they toppled over, one after the other because sometimes general incivility is the very essence of love.

I have no idea why that first line came to mind while I was indeed cleaning.  I've not read Austen in years, nor watched movies in months.



(sonnet #MMMMMMMCDXLI)


Jane Austen's drawing rooms I'd feign avail
Me of, whose wainscot's polished oak is dense
With import as the papered walls from hence
Look smug; yes, take a turn in sheer betrayl
Across those gleaming floors, dressed ah, to scale
In empire-waist' floor-length is it pretense?
And for the *** of tea I'll sip for sense,
The dainty patterns on those walls' sweet bail.
Don't ask me why.  In scrubbing bathrooms' tour,
I could not settle on just whither to
Until that note piqued languid thoughts as twere.
I've been there so oft for discussions through
Each novel, t'would be quite refreshing, poor
As fiction's vain suggestion, if'd could do.

11Oct18a

See how the farmer waits
for his  crop to sprout,
for spring rain to fall,
and for autumn harvest.
So you must too,
wait
Your seeds are being planted.
Know your happiness,
because darling,
you need nothing
but patience.
Or better yet, call it hope.

And even on my most
forgetful days
days when I can’t remember
what happened in an Austen novel
nor the last time I thought
of others before myself
you are still a poem
on those forgetful days
that I memorized several years ago
perched on the sill of my tongue
waiting
like birds
to take off into a
disinterred sky
waiting to be recited before a
disinterested crowd.

To get away from the TV set
and the cursed Internet
I sought refuge among the trees
and lunged in natural aired breeze.
I watched the orange setting sun
And clouds drift by. Oh what fun!

I heard a distant sounding moo
followed by some hullabaloo.
The sound of voices was clear now
they belonged to women, not a cow!
Two young women tall and fair
approached my grassy open lair.

Two young women in floral dresses
with auburn, curled demure tresses
and polished docile English air
having considerable savoir fair,
on the grass beside me landed
and a jewel casket to me they handed.

Trying my best not to sound rude
"Who is it?" I asked and "why intrude?"
One of them took my hand and said
"I have written the book you recently read"
"Forgive me” Said I “to not sound shrewd,
but pray tell me to which book you allude?"

The taller one again; the clear leader
spoke and said "oh dear reader,
my book was written in silent prayer,
the ****** of which you are aware
quotes of which, you cite with flair
I am the author of Jane Eyre."

"Charlotte Brontë" gasped I with glee
has come for a rendezvous with me!
My excitement no bounds knew
when the older one of the two,
who had hitherto watched silently
spoke and thus addressed me.

"I have written on sensibility,
sense,
prejudice, pride and providence.
I have written on layers of the mind
and family ties that never cease to bind.
I covered events both real & farce-y,
I am the creator of William Darcy".

"Jane Austen" said I with fervour
"I am your greatest admirer.
Your lucidity of language and verse
and the way your characters converse
have helped developed my writing style
which previously, I assure you was sterile"

"This is an honour, a considerable one,
But to deserve this tell me what have I done?"
"We are here to give you treasure
to improve your writing in measure"
I motioned to the jewelled basket,
"Is there something in that casket?"

"Does it contain secret notes?
unpublished poems and anecdotes?
maybe a magic potion or spell
That will make me write really well
Does it contain divine mediums
that will help me conjure idioms?"

"No" said Charlotte Brontë,
"It has what you need, not what you want"
I opened the jewel case with ease
expecting to find a set of keys
and so was nearly surprised when
in its interiors I found a pen

"There are no rules to follow
No magic potion to swallow.
Every accomplished writer knows:
there is no secret method to poem or prose.
So do not cloud your mind with fears
and write with blood and tears."

Birds around me began to stir
and the scene before me; to blur.
Was this a mere delusion?
A dream perhaps or an illusion?
"Remember to put pen to paper"
saying this, the women turned to vapour.

I woke up with a nervous start
and a wildly beating heart.
It was nearly breaking dawn;
I may have slept off in the lawn.
If the women were a creation of my mind,
how then in my palm did the pen I find?