Monday, April 15, 2019

HEAVEN LAKE (29) ~








Departures





I brought a big sack of laundry

to the laundromat to wash

in fact I brought two

on a cold winter slush ground day

and I was the only one in there

reading my book of a Slovene poet

when two other guys showed up

one with his smart phone entertainment

the other with a nifty jazz player hat

me with my book on a bench

two dryers tumbling

one with a jumbled sound

which turned out to have a

rhythm all its own when it

finally stopped, clothes almost dry

(they are never completely dry)

the fellow with the jazzy hat said

without turning around, "Just when

I was getting used to the rhythm of

that sound" and I replied, “And isn’t it

Just like rhythm, once it’s noticed

it’s gone."









It Happens





Getting older —

The dark woods

Look darker







Authority





Some mouse has woven

a paper nest in my stored

away mud boots all winter



It’s now sloppy spring

and I’m needing

my boots



who am

I to wreck

a warm home?






Flying





I tell him I have never flown in a plane

He looks at me quietly for a moment

Then repeats what he can’t believe he has heard —

You have never flown in a plane. . .

Others have reacted the same way over the years

I look at their expressions, their whole faces

Faces that are full of disbelief and somehow larger

So that I feel like I am flying over mountains






Notes





Every night, late,

I have written a note I leave

for the woman I love

over 40 years this way



Somewhere there is a drawer

or drawers of these notes

she saved everything

which tells you everything



If one day you come upon these notes

remember when I tell you

we were in love

as you feel only the paper




___________________________


Bob Arnold
Heaven Lake
Longhouse 2018