Reset Forty-Nine, Day Two Hundred Forty
Jan. 21st, 2024 03:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rejectomorphA leak in the hot water line of the apartment next to mine has forced a shutoff of the hot water until some time Monday, which is when they will be able to dig up the floor and fix the pipe. I hope. I'm going to run out of clean dishes, or I'll have to boil water on the stove and use that to wash them. The digging will probably be noisy, and take place when I want to be sleeping. And I'd really like a shower. It's going to be an unpleasant few days. I hope there will be no delays. But the water pressure in the hot line has been inconveniently low for some time now, and it will be nice to have that fixed.
It rained off and on all day Saturday, and is expected to continue today and Monday, then we get a day off and rain returns on Wednesday. It's still not getting very cold around here, with nocturnal lows mostly in the high forties, and none in the thirties. Maybe I won't get any triple-digit utility bills this winter after all. A week from today they are actually predicting a high of 68, which is almost unheard of for a north valley January day. It just goes to show that even an apocalypse has its pleasant moments.
Speaking of pleasant moments, my neck was considerably less painful Saturday, and at times didn't even hurt at all. My sleep hours were odd but effective, and dinner was a single-serving vegetable lasagna, one of my favorites. On the whole a decent day, even without hot water. I'm going to do my best to make Sunday pleasant, as Monday with its jackhammer on the far side of my bedroom wall is apt to be a total nightmare. Two pleasant days out of three is acceptable. I just hope the water line project doesn't spill over into Tuesday.
Sunday Verse
by Mark Doty
The dogs were tired and bewildered,
stunned by the ways they’d been treated
by men—yelled at, kicked around, left unfed
in the cold and the rain. Not to mention
the usual predations of time and illness:
cold creak of the hips, tumor and clouded eye,
ears that ceased to help at all …
What could they do, powerless ones?
To whom might they appeal?
The wisest among them
—that was his reputation—
suggested that a letter be drafted to God;
only by appeal to a higher authority
might their plight be considered.
But once the questions were written,
who would carry it? Who knew how
to imagine the way?
The ablest was chosen—a retriever,
he could walk for days,
nearly incapable of flagging,
and his entire being knew the imperative,
to carry. But how will you carry it, they asked?
In my mouth. No, they cried, you’ll drop it
every time you bark. And then the wisest
made this plan: they’d roll their plea
into a scroll, tightly, and their hero
would open his legs, and lift his tail,
and carry the missive inside him,
where he was sure to keep it
until he reached the gates of paradise.
And off he trotted, his head high, and his tail,
only a slight delicacy in his walk
betraying discomfort, into the fields
with their blonde grasses, upstream,
off toward the border of the world.
Do I need to tell you he never returned?
Why Lord, the letter read, did you put
a wicked clockspring in our bellies?
Our eyes glaze, our old hips refuse
a step, we can’t even lift a leg
to mark a trail. Why given these indignities
are we further subject to the harrowing
of men, we who stand before them
all expectation, why are we met with blows,
or worse? In every town of this world
you’ve given us, in pen and shelter,
in cellar and alley and hole in the dirt,
we your children await your reply.
Therefore, when each dog meets a stranger,
it’s necessary to sniff beneath the tail:
perhaps, this time, this is the returning messenger;
it’s still possible a reply might reach them.
It rained off and on all day Saturday, and is expected to continue today and Monday, then we get a day off and rain returns on Wednesday. It's still not getting very cold around here, with nocturnal lows mostly in the high forties, and none in the thirties. Maybe I won't get any triple-digit utility bills this winter after all. A week from today they are actually predicting a high of 68, which is almost unheard of for a north valley January day. It just goes to show that even an apocalypse has its pleasant moments.
Speaking of pleasant moments, my neck was considerably less painful Saturday, and at times didn't even hurt at all. My sleep hours were odd but effective, and dinner was a single-serving vegetable lasagna, one of my favorites. On the whole a decent day, even without hot water. I'm going to do my best to make Sunday pleasant, as Monday with its jackhammer on the far side of my bedroom wall is apt to be a total nightmare. Two pleasant days out of three is acceptable. I just hope the water line project doesn't spill over into Tuesday.
Sunday Verse
Letter To God
by Mark Doty
The dogs were tired and bewildered,
stunned by the ways they’d been treated
by men—yelled at, kicked around, left unfed
in the cold and the rain. Not to mention
the usual predations of time and illness:
cold creak of the hips, tumor and clouded eye,
ears that ceased to help at all …
What could they do, powerless ones?
To whom might they appeal?
The wisest among them
—that was his reputation—
suggested that a letter be drafted to God;
only by appeal to a higher authority
might their plight be considered.
But once the questions were written,
who would carry it? Who knew how
to imagine the way?
The ablest was chosen—a retriever,
he could walk for days,
nearly incapable of flagging,
and his entire being knew the imperative,
to carry. But how will you carry it, they asked?
In my mouth. No, they cried, you’ll drop it
every time you bark. And then the wisest
made this plan: they’d roll their plea
into a scroll, tightly, and their hero
would open his legs, and lift his tail,
and carry the missive inside him,
where he was sure to keep it
until he reached the gates of paradise.
And off he trotted, his head high, and his tail,
only a slight delicacy in his walk
betraying discomfort, into the fields
with their blonde grasses, upstream,
off toward the border of the world.
Do I need to tell you he never returned?
Why Lord, the letter read, did you put
a wicked clockspring in our bellies?
Our eyes glaze, our old hips refuse
a step, we can’t even lift a leg
to mark a trail. Why given these indignities
are we further subject to the harrowing
of men, we who stand before them
all expectation, why are we met with blows,
or worse? In every town of this world
you’ve given us, in pen and shelter,
in cellar and alley and hole in the dirt,
we your children await your reply.
Therefore, when each dog meets a stranger,
it’s necessary to sniff beneath the tail:
perhaps, this time, this is the returning messenger;
it’s still possible a reply might reach them.
