The Blackbird of Happiness

Come willingly or not at all.

Of your own free will

or I don't want you.

I'll make the space for you.

I'll prepare the bedding for your comfort

in hope you will arrive.

 

But coax you?

That I cannot do.

Besides, I know the drill.

I'd coax in vain.

You never come when called,

you hearken to no master.

 

As love, you rule all roosts.

As compassion, you are too often absent,

leaving us all the worse

for your reluctance to appear.

 

I wait, dear blackbird,

the light lit, the bed made,

for you to show.

I call, where are you?

Need does not attract you,

no more does want,

and coaxing, we have seen,

brings no results.

Yet your real place is here,

among us poor-in-spirit humans,

as you well know.

 

Enough talk.

No more flattery or persuasion.

If you cannot see and pity

the mess we're making

deprived of the grace that kindness gives,

then the devil take you.

Blackbird, bye-bye.

 

 

Copyright © 2022 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

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Revisiting the Frayed Edges

Fifteen years ago I wrote a piece about fraying at the edges in which I imagined a piece of linen fraying and becoming softer with each laundering—and of course I related this image to the fact of aging. There we were (I was) with my edges becoming less defined, my sharp outlines blurring. And so forth. I thought myself so very clever.

 

That was what I saw and felt at the time. Now, fifteen years later, I see where that was heading. It is no longer a question of edges. I am fraying at my very core. If I can continue this metaphor, the core of me is disentangling. Picture a woven scrap of fabric and then imagine it with frayed edges, that's part of it. But take it further. Unpick the weaving itself (yes, kind of like Penelope, but off the loom) and when you have imagined this fully, you will be left with no scrap of fabric at all but a pile of loose threads.

 

Oh, this is simply too much to write about. Let's go to Side B. Look at me: strong and healthy, buttressed by potions and lotions and tinctures as needed, cushioned by the love of husband, children, friends. Not having to skimp at the end of every month as I once did. Provided with endless opportunities for entertainment (but remember Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death?).

 

This woman is indeed lucky. Even as a pile of unpicked threads she's well taken care of. And I must say this business of watching oneself age is endlessly fascinating (though, face it, you have probably noticed that I find most things about myself endlessly fascinating).

 

My mind changes in a random way. It loses words until I despair of ever being able to do another crossword puzzle. And then, out of nowhere will pop a bizarre word I didn't even know I knew. The clue was something like "the crossbar of the harness that attaches a team of horses or oxen to a cart." Or something like that—a bit more precise, I'm sure. And my fading, lazy mind chose that occasion to show off, pouncing and plucking from the ether (and without a single clue of a letter to prompt it): "whiffletree." I haven't heard the term in years, and it was certainly never an active part of my life. Despite what you might think, I am not a child of the pre-automobile era. So there it is, in case you need it: a whiffletree as an example of the unreliability of the mind.

 

I can find whiffletree, but I can't remember what I had for dinner last night—even though I'm sure it was remarkable.

 

 

Copyright © 2022 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

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Poem-ettes

I hereby declare myself a devotee of the short poem. Milton I will not explore, nor the Romantic poets and their sagas of endless stanzas. The difference between me then and me now is that I used to feel guilty about not wanting to read those epic works. It was my literary heritage, after all—a heavy cloak of guilt there to spread over my poor shoulders. Or like a schmear of peanut butter over my whitebread plebeian tastes. Too many metaphors?

 

Let me say this: we're lucky I've been able to find admiration for the short poem. (That's a loose use of "we", because why should you care at all?) But I'm grateful that I have learned finally to dip my toe into the vast, cold ocean of poetry. Short poetry. Perhaps not an ocean but a cold lake. A pond. Give me cute little couplets, four-line stanzas, alliteration and inner rhymes and near rhymes. But no more than three or four stanzas, please, or I lose interest, close the book, and go back to the day's genre novel—a faster read than even the shortest verse.

 

Is that what it's all about for me? Speed? The faster I read it the sooner I'm finished and then I'm on to the next. Really? If I were to encounter a character whose reading life this was, would I not feel mild (at the least) contempt for her?

 

Okay, this is getting too close for comfort. Back to my short poems. Can I write one?

 

My massage table broke for the second time.

How many chances

do you give a massage table

when every breakdown

means

an unsuspecting body tossed onto the floor

a rude interruption to the bliss

of being touched by knowing hands?

 

Two breaks and you're out,

you treacherous table.

Fold yourself up

and hide in the closet,

for you've lost your position.

You've been replaced by a loaner,

a narrower, metal-legged loaner

that promises not to buckle.

There's no third chance

for you, my pretty purple massage table.

I dare say I'll miss you.

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022 Ann Tudor

Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00JI4758O

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