rejectomorph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rejectomorph) wrote2022-05-15 02:41 am
rejectomorph) wrote2022-05-15 02:41 am
Reset Forty, Day Thirty-Seven
Saturday morning I felt rather ill, and still felt pretty bad after I woke up that afternoon. Aging can be exhausting. It's probably supposed to be. Otherwise how would we know when we're supposed to leave? I'm not sure I'll be leaving soon, but sooner or later, we'll see what the aging says. Tonight it's just telling me I want to listen to the Chili Peppers and then go to sleep. Dark Necessities.
The apartment got close to sultry today, and is still too warm, but the fan is on and it should soon be cool enough for sleeping. Five of the next eight days, including today, will have highs in the nineties. We'll see how my brain (and everything else) holds up through that. I'm pretty well fried at the moment. I'd rather be baked, of course, but fried is what I've got and am likely to keep getting. My thoughts are bound to be muddled even more than usual, but I'll make do with it.
I'm going to post the poem that I woke up with in my head a few days ago. Words escape me these days, so I rely on those someone else has already captured. These are reliable, and suitable to my mood.
Sunday Verse
by Richard Wilbur
I. 1933
(North Caldwell, New Jersey)
What were we playing? Was it prisoner’s base?
I ran with whacking keds
Down the cart-road past Rickard’s place,
And where it dropped beside the tractor-sheds
Leapt out into the air above a blurred
Terrain, through jolted light,
Took two hard lopes, and at the third
Spanked off a hummock-side exactly right,
And made the turn, and with delighted strain
Sprinted across the flat
By the bull-pen, and up the lane.
Thinking of happiness, I think of that.
II. PATRIOT’S DAY
(Wellesley, Massachusetts)
Restless that noble day, appeased by soft
Drinks and tobacco, littering the grass
While the flag snapped and brightened far aloft,
We waited for the marathon to pass,
We fathers and our little sons, let out
Of school and office to be put to shame.
Now from the street-side someone raised a shout,
And into view the first small runners came.
Dark in the glare, they seemed to thresh in place
Like preening flies upon a window-sill,
Yet gained and grew, and at a cruel pace
Swept by us on their way to Heartbreak Hill—
Legs driving, fists at port, clenched faces, men,
And in amongst them, stamping on the sun,
Our champion Kelley, who would win again,
Rocked in his will, at rest within his run.
III. DODWELLS ROAD
(Cummington, Massachusetts)
I jog up out of the woods
To the crown of the road, and slow to a swagger there,
The wind harsh and cool to my throat,
A good ache in my rib-cage.
Loud burden of steams at run-off,
And the sun’s rocket frazzled in blown tree-heads:
Still I am part of that great going,
Though I stroll now, and am watchful.
Where the road turns and debouches,
The land sinks westward into exhausted pasture.
From fields which yield to aspen now
And pine at last will shadow,
Boy-shouts reach me, and barking.
What is the thing which men will not surrender?
It is what they have never had, I think,
Or missed in its true season,
So that their thoughts turn in
At the same roadhouse nightly, the same cloister,
The wild mouth of the same brave river
Never now to be charted.
You, whoever you are,
If you want to walk with me you must step lively.
I run, too, when mood offers,
Though the god of that has left me.
But why in the hell spoil it?
I make a clean gift of my young running
To the two boys who break into view,
Hurdling the rocks and racing,
Their dog dodging before them
This way and that, his yaps flushing a pheasant
Who lifts now from the blustery grass
Flying full tilt already.
The apartment got close to sultry today, and is still too warm, but the fan is on and it should soon be cool enough for sleeping. Five of the next eight days, including today, will have highs in the nineties. We'll see how my brain (and everything else) holds up through that. I'm pretty well fried at the moment. I'd rather be baked, of course, but fried is what I've got and am likely to keep getting. My thoughts are bound to be muddled even more than usual, but I'll make do with it.
I'm going to post the poem that I woke up with in my head a few days ago. Words escape me these days, so I rely on those someone else has already captured. These are reliable, and suitable to my mood.
Sunday Verse
Running
by Richard Wilbur
I. 1933
(North Caldwell, New Jersey)
What were we playing? Was it prisoner’s base?
I ran with whacking keds
Down the cart-road past Rickard’s place,
And where it dropped beside the tractor-sheds
Leapt out into the air above a blurred
Terrain, through jolted light,
Took two hard lopes, and at the third
Spanked off a hummock-side exactly right,
And made the turn, and with delighted strain
Sprinted across the flat
By the bull-pen, and up the lane.
Thinking of happiness, I think of that.
II. PATRIOT’S DAY
(Wellesley, Massachusetts)
Restless that noble day, appeased by soft
Drinks and tobacco, littering the grass
While the flag snapped and brightened far aloft,
We waited for the marathon to pass,
We fathers and our little sons, let out
Of school and office to be put to shame.
Now from the street-side someone raised a shout,
And into view the first small runners came.
Dark in the glare, they seemed to thresh in place
Like preening flies upon a window-sill,
Yet gained and grew, and at a cruel pace
Swept by us on their way to Heartbreak Hill—
Legs driving, fists at port, clenched faces, men,
And in amongst them, stamping on the sun,
Our champion Kelley, who would win again,
Rocked in his will, at rest within his run.
III. DODWELLS ROAD
(Cummington, Massachusetts)
I jog up out of the woods
To the crown of the road, and slow to a swagger there,
The wind harsh and cool to my throat,
A good ache in my rib-cage.
Loud burden of steams at run-off,
And the sun’s rocket frazzled in blown tree-heads:
Still I am part of that great going,
Though I stroll now, and am watchful.
Where the road turns and debouches,
The land sinks westward into exhausted pasture.
From fields which yield to aspen now
And pine at last will shadow,
Boy-shouts reach me, and barking.
What is the thing which men will not surrender?
It is what they have never had, I think,
Or missed in its true season,
So that their thoughts turn in
At the same roadhouse nightly, the same cloister,
The wild mouth of the same brave river
Never now to be charted.
You, whoever you are,
If you want to walk with me you must step lively.
I run, too, when mood offers,
Though the god of that has left me.
But why in the hell spoil it?
I make a clean gift of my young running
To the two boys who break into view,
Hurdling the rocks and racing,
Their dog dodging before them
This way and that, his yaps flushing a pheasant
Who lifts now from the blustery grass
Flying full tilt already.