I would like to remind
the management
that the drinks are watered
and the hat-check girl
has syphilis
and the band is composed
of former SS monsters
However since it is
New Year's Eve
and I have lip cancer
I will place my
paper hat on my
concussion and dance.
— Leonard Cohen
…how after all that fierce planning
I could grow up to be the soft ineffectual synthesis
of untold compromises that I am today.
The plum you're going to eat next summer
doesn't exist yet; its potential
lives inside a tree you'll never see
in an orchard you'll never see, will be touched
by a certain number of water droplets
before it reaches you, by certain angles
of light, by a finite amount of bugs
and dust motes and hands
you'll never know. The plum you are
going to eat next summer will gather
sugar, gather mass, will harden
at its center so it can soften toward
your mouth. The plum
you're going to eat next
summer doesn't know
you exist. The plum you are
going to eat next summer
is growing just for you.
— Gayle Brandeis
Late in May as the light lengthens
toward summer the young goldfinches
flutter down through the day for the first time
to find themselves among fallen petals
cradling their day's colors in the day's shadows
of the garden beside the old house
after a cold spring with no rain
not a sound comes from the empty village
as I stand eating the black cherries
from the loaded branches above me
saying to myself Remember this
— W.S. Merwin
A neighborhood tuxedo cat’s walking the fence line
and the dogs are going bonkers in the early morning.
The louder they bark, the more their vexation grows,
the less the cat seems to care. She’s behind my raised
beds now, no doubt looking for the family of field mice
I’ve been leaving be because, why not? The cat’s
dressed up for this occasion of trespass, black tie
attire for the canine taunting, but the whole clamor
is making me uneasy. This might be what growing
older is. My problem: I see all the angles of what
could go wrong so I never know what side to be on.
Save the mice, shoo the cat, quiet the dogs? Let
the cat have at it? Let the dogs have at it? Instead,
I do what I do best: nothing. I watch the cat
leap into the drainage ditch, dew-wet fur against
the day lilies, and disappear. The dogs go quiet
again, and the mice are safe in their caves, and
I’m here waiting for something to happen to me.
— Ada Limón