Member-only story
“Just as the calendar began to say summer
I went out of the schoolhouse fast
and through the gardens and to the woode, and spent all summer forgetting what I’d been taught —two times two, and diligence, and so forth, how to be modest and useful, and how to succeed and so forth, machines and oil and plastic and money and so forth.
By fall I had healed somewhat, but was summoned back to the chalky rooms and the desks, to sit and remember
the way the river kept rolling its pebbles, the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn’t a penny in the bank,
the way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light.”
— Mary Oliver
Such a summer.
So many ups and downs
all arounds;
plenty of clowns
and thorny crowns.
But I’m grateful.
Hell, at the end of the day,
what else can you be but grateful?
A summer on the rocks, plenty of ice.
I lived hard and wrote it all down,
worked harder and spent all the proceeds;
but I fulfilled all my needs —
forgiveness came for all the deeds.
So there I was, dancing in the dust,
contemplating what it is to trust;
how to survive lust,
and how to outlive the rust…
An end came to my summer
with a beautiful nine days in the desert;
nine cheers to sunrises.
Tears on tap,
beer in the backpack —
dust in every crack.
After the fire, there’s no looking back.
Can’t wait to see you again, my dusty friends. )’(
September 22, 2022
