The Time of Year When Things Begin Anew

On Friday, coming back from the beach

we passed through Huntington where the historical society was preparing for a little festival --very end of summery/hint of fall.

Then home to the city under terror alert. Earthquake, hurricane, floods and then people zooming about on large motorcycles trying to express whatever was impossible to express about this weekend's sad anniversary.

We are alert to a plane very high up above a building! A World War Two plane travelling so very slowly. The weekend over

 

 the light, so clear and bright, makes complicated patterns everywhere.

Even the chain link fence looks abstracty and artsy.

Our apartment floors sanded and sealed, a storage cabinet built, walls painted. Everything cleared and clean and ready to make something new.

In the meantime, I dug up a very old poem about my cereal bowl.

Villeroy and Boch

_{they reap the corn two centuries ago}

_{in some hot european field}

_{where two men stand}

_{bent slightly over scythes}

_{and women stoop to gather what’s been cut.}

_{it was ever thus.}

_{this tasteful scene}

_{congeals beneath my weetabix}

_{in monochrome}

_{(bone china}

_{dishwasher safe)}

_{atop a polished table}

_{the sweat! the smell!}

_{the hours under scalding sun}

_{I’d hate to be a peasant then}

_{broad-fingered, ignorant and numb}

_{to everything but aching back and shoulders’ burn}

_{I’d long to loll beside the cows}

_{in shade beneath the heavy trees}

_{I wouldn’t care to look charmant}

_{to decorate a dish}

_{my labor turned to prettiness}