Aubade
Think
in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in
in
the night. William
Blake.
He's young again, my old friend,
and has not cured himself of the habit
of pulling curtains aside and raising blinds
as he slips in and comes through the house.
He's already opened the kitchen window for me
and settled on the balcony, slouching on its long bench,
ready.
We sit for a while out here considering
the nature of the light this morning.
I tell him, again, I'd like him to stay all day.
Nosing through the long grass above the house
two dogs from next door trot past, sniff the sweet
william.
He shivers in his thin jacket, dawn's frost still in
him.
I mention fireflies we saw last night
though I know this is a sight he can't imagine.
I tell him my hip and right calf are tight
from yesterday's walk in these mountains.
He says he walks everywhere he goes and I believe him.
He watches me do some stretches, finds it amusing.
I know that when I go inside to the coffee pot
he will leave. I do think, though, that he's curious
about how a whole day might go, its hollowed out
brightness, eventual dusk, descent into night.
When I come back from the kitchen with coffee
I'll sit where he was sitting and consider the valley,
its vines that hold out their last leaves eager for this
light.
As
a rule, since Larkin's Aubade,
I
am a bit stringent about the use of
the word as the title of a poem. So I approached this
poem stringently,
which may have been why it took me a moment to tumble to
it. When I
did I gave a little grin and a chuckle, as if the poet
was joking with me,
(maybe he was) and I thought – Yep. You've earned it.
Only title you could
have used.
I also really liked the use of personification, and
wondered if perhaps the
poet is a fan of Keats, maybe back in the day, like we
all were back in the
day.
Maybe some of us still are fans. John Keats' To
Autumn was
the first
time I stumbled upon personification, and now I realise
it is a weapon I
have never added to my arsenal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Autumn
Kevin
Brophy's new and selected book Walking,
is
now available from -
http://johnleonardpress.com/?p=195
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