Hello Old Friend
I promise I haven’t forgotten about this blog, but I have had a crazy last few days…weeks…months? Yesterday was my birthday and it was also Wendell Berry’s 90th. Last week I spent around 48 hours over 4 days preparing my house for an appraisal while working my normal job (okay, I did take one day off) and sleeping very little.
This week, Katie and the kids are down in Louisiana and I have been bumming rides to work and church and eating meals with friends. It’s been a busy time the last few weeks as we are trying to reorganize finances, make school plans for the kids this fall (we homeschool) and just generally survive a crazy economy and busy life.
But never fear! I have continued to write and thought I would share a poem from the other day scribbled after a long day of work and working on the house.
To Katie, Wherever I may Find Her
When did the rain start falling down? When did the sage become a clown Laughing at jokes that bring tears to every eye? I see the trees through the sun. My days are over before they’ve begun And the only way to live is to have already died. And the waters that form on the muddy ground Make a quiet and mournful sort of sound That sings like a choir of souls long fallen. And I’m just a boy and she’s just a girl In a merry-go-round and a tilt-a-whirl world With days long forgotten and memories calling. And some days she’s here, And some days she’s gone, And some times I’m right, But mostly I’m wrong, And I don’t know where we go from here. I don’t know where we go from here. When did the music start to play? When did my mind start to run away To places and people and darkness in the night? She’s asleep on the other side of the bed And I imagine she’s dead and, filled with dread, I start to weep and beg for the day's first light. And the her that I’ve known isn’t all she is And the mystery forms like a charlatan’s kiss That brings doubt and brings pain that everything is a lie. But she stretches a hand to hold on to mine And I start to believe that everything’s fine And my sanity finds a tethering link from the look in her eye. And the world just keeps spinning, Around and around, I’m deafened by all, The extraneous sound, And I don’t know where to go from here So I guess that I’ll just stay right here Awhile.