Hurricane Lodge

One night
of seven
or eight thousand
so far
that might
have been,
was not, last.

Next morning
sunbeams play,
jewels out
of the safe
deposit box.

“Thank you Ma’am,” Uncle
would say on those one lane
island roads, cart tracks really,
when an ongoing vehicle
would pull off and let him
pass.  Sometimes, it’d be
“if you please” instead,
when the dust was highest
and it wasn’t clear which
car would give way
first.  Bear in mind this happened
at about the pace of turtles
courting, males facing females,
slowly nodding their heads up
and down, side to side
hours at a time.

A little more than a year ago my son and I were in the summer of Mississippi, this year just the quiet of Vermont where one usually sleeps deeply (except when the coyotes sing, but that is another poem).

Bad Nights

“Resting is just
as good as sleeping”
he used to
say when we children
would toss and turn,
call for him, ask for
water, invent-
ing any pretext
we could to have
him sit on our bed just
a while longer.

It wasn’t true! We
would wake, but no
amount of rubbing
our eyes could make
us ready for the
day. And, strangely,
that’s the first thing
comes to mind, while
eating breakfast at
some faceless roadside
chain, next morning,

just outside Jackson,
Mississippi,
Gulf Coast still ravaged,
mile after mile, street
after sandy street
of vacant lots,
like ruined faces
staring out from
the long shadows of
deep South summer.

My son had tossed
and turned a
good part of the night
but he’s way
too old to trot out
that old saw – just
a dog that won’t
hunt anymore. I
wonder if he or
his sister will
someday tell their own
overtired kid,
“resting is just as
good as sleeping”?

It was so cold last night,
house shivered,
sounded like
exterior walls and roof
were cracking in the wind.
So what did I think
of when I woke at dawn?

I remembered the smell
of the cedar outdoor shower
that he built at the ocean
house, then how I’d look up, naked,
at scrub oaks overhanging
under a wobbly fog, the rough
soap and feast of thick
tubes of shampoo
on the shelf next
to the faucet-head
and after that the steady
drip drip drip like some fleshy
sprinkler when I walked,
wrapped in a beach
towel, to the screen door.

That was summer and that simple
outdoor showerhead sprayed
more than water. Who knew
at the time that putting an elbow
on the main pipestem
and erecting the last three walls,
completing the square
like playing that “dots” game
as a child, could bring
such contentment?

Standing in the Underground
studying Tube map:
can an Elephant and Castle
march down to Marble
Arch, Tooting Bec and
Tooting Broadway without
making too much noise?
Oh where is the Gospel Oak
when you need an angel?

Dad began to read
the Wind in the Willows
to me, windowshades
down, light
of a June night
stabbing every crack.

I don’t think
we ever finished it
for some reason,
but I’d like to now,
find Ratty and Mole
on some adventure
watch them sail across the
little river home.