listening after dark

Rainy night, rummaging through old poems

From 2005:

When you are this happy, you tell yourself God must be
upset by your bliss. Something must not be right.
He's waiting, piss-poor and grouchy,
holding a staff, stroking his beard.
He loves you, dammit.

Telephonic mysteries

First of all, ever since I got a cell phone, I've become one of those people—the kind who are irritated by callers who don't leave messages. I mean, it made sense in the old days, before caller ID (which means up through 2005, for me, and up through the present, for my parents...hey, it's just easier that way). Of course, if you have the wrong number, it makes sense not to leave a message. Yet it still leaves me wondering. Who are they? Why did they dial my number, out of all numbers? Tonight I had a missed call from a foreign area code, which, when I looked it up, appears to be out of South Dakota. I know absolutely no one in South Dakota. Obviously it was a mistake. Yet still, I wonder... Who? Why?

On a less contemplative note, I got my electricity bill today. Only up $14 from my last bill, and this during the coldest weeks of the year (I hope; God I hope!). I've been cold, sure, but my sheepskin slipper boots, silk long underwear and fleece blanket have been my fondest friends. My little wheel-around radiator is also my friend. Warming my clothes on it in the mornings reminds me of childhood, our house in the woods, our big iron stove in the living room and unheated bedrooms. It was always a joy to wake to the sound of my dad building a fire so my brother and I could run out and warm our clothes before dressing. Which makes it sound like we lived in the Yukon in 1935. Which we didn't. Just in northeastern Washington, off a small highway, in our little woods, where things probably haven't changed a whole lot since 1935. Better plumbing, sure. Better dental care. Just as many guns. Fewer trees.

And because it's been a while, and because I'm longing for the days when it's light again in the evenings and I can walk and hike after work, before sunset...

View from the Foothills
10-11-06

—and a bird glided sideways in the wind
its bright underbelly a beacon in the sky
while all its energy concentrated on holding steady
with wings rigid in the updraft.

—and someone made a seat, a long while ago
or just this summer, bracing flat rocks against
each other, facing west. The sun is bright in my eyes.

—and spread below me is the small city, all dark green
except for glaring rooftops and patches
of trees turned gold by the changing days.

—and the scattered succession of reflections
off car windows from the streets below
seem to signal some larger purpose for being here
above the city, alone, watching the influence of wind
and low sunlight on the tufted grasses at my feet.

© 2006 April K Szuch

On killing the mealy bugs

My Sun Star was infested for a few days, but I put an end to that. Water, a little rubbing alcohol and a drop or two of dish soap, mixed together, then sprayed on all the leaves and flowers, got rid of those little bugs. And luckily before any of my other eight houseplants were affected. But what's a mealy bug, you ask? See for yourself. Just don't be like me when I was a kid: after I saw a highly enlarged illustration of a bed bug, I didn't sleep well for weeks.

In other plant news, I have flower seedlings coming up on my patio. I've also planted mint, basil, chives, lavender and some other flowers. It's exciting to see the green tips come up out of the soil, which I've watered and tended. I could be a farmer, I think. It amazes me that those little black seeds really turn into something.

SANTA FE SKIES

Stories on the radio

When I was in eastern Canada last fall, I spent a lot of time listening to public radio while driving. I'd have to find a new station every 50 miles or so, and the programming alternated between jazz, French music, blues, opera, news and classical. Once, in New Brunswick, I think, I heard a story about a composer. I forget his last name, but his first was Fritz. The story was so intriguing, I dug out a scrap of paper and took notes while driving. I knew it would later become a poem.

---

Fritz the Unknown
10-27-05

His father wanted him to be anything
but a musician. He sent his son to watch sheep
somewhere in the country. His mind must have been filled
with song even then, even before he could play or write.
Suppose he hummed to the sheep.

When his failure at woolgathering became apparent,
his father tried again. Sheep require careful attention,
but fruit are another manner. (So he must have thought.)
Off went the son to grow oranges, but the silence
must have been overwhelming. No rutting, no chewing of cud.

After this first half of his life, spent in the pursuit
of failed ventures, his father relented.
Shipped to Leipzig, Finland, he began to learn.
He spent hours drinking schnapps with a man called Greek.
Eventually his fame was secured in Paris, of course.

So the story goes. But what must those years have grown
in him, through the gathering of sheep and oranges,
the solitary humming, symphonies composed on scraps
or in margins when he should have been calculating
the year’s profits. What songs he must have lived.

© 2005 April K Szuch

Story poem

I wrote this last night. In fact, it nearly wrote itself. The characters became vivid by the end. I'm not sure if I really like it or what it says, but I think it's a valid story.

...

The Permission of Memory
1-14-06

I
Last May I painted one room blue, the color of
your suitcase. You left quietly, latching
the screen door and taking the morning paper
with you. The grass was damp with dew
and I held my breath
while waiting for the coffee to brew. I never drank
coffee before that morning.
I thought I knew the things
I needed. Caffeine wasn’t among them.

Ten days later I flew to Detroit, the coldest
of places.
I walked the streets without a sweater.
But I wore a hat. I did that much
to protect myself.

II
Cinnamon brought me home to Savannah.
Mama taught me to make apple pie, at last.
I’d been begging her for years. Still, she wouldn’t share
the recipe. “It’s in my head,” she told me. “Safe.”
It’s where she keeps all the important things.

She wanted me to take a pie with me—
“the fruits of your labor,” she insisted—
but it wouldn’t have lasted through the flight.

I ate a slice, warm, with a glass of milk,
and called a cab.
“You know I love you, baby,” she called after me.
Flour still on her apron.
“I know, Mama,” I put my suitcase on the backseat,
slid myself in. “I know.”

© 2006 April K Szuch

Countdown: 24 hours

As of this time tomorrow, I'll be on my way north, beginning my adventure. Until further notice, I'll be putting listening after dark on hold and posting on wanderlust.

A poem to leave you with:

The Sky That Covers Me
8-27-05

Twelve days more at home, twelve days before I settle into the road
and take that adventure everyone seems to be wanting. Leave all this:
This attic room, a morning breeze—warm and the end of summer.
These bed sheets I’ve had through all the best years of my life.
The music I will carry with me, but not the warm air,
not the rushing of the creek outside my window, not the friends
except in thought and memory—a phone call
now and again, a letter.

I want to stay here among books and bright walls, fall coming,
things just beginning, things ending.
Wanting to run away, to return to the woods of my birth—
tamarack trees, aspen and pine lining the narrow roads,
protruding roots I knew to avoid on my bike—any bike; I didn’t care—
or while running, when running wasn’t something I loved or hated
but a better way to move: without proper shoes or the glasses
I later learned I needed.

This week I’ve written myself into corners and back out
again into freedom, into singularity.
Perhaps I was handled roughly or too gently as a child.
I’m imagining the light angling off seaside grasses
two thousand miles away. I’m imagining that sunset
when I was twelve—a red ball, hanging on the horizon,
while we drove home. This could have been all the adventure
I ever wanted.

© 2005 April K Szuch

Where have I been?

I haven't been doing much this week, it seems, except working and thinking about leaving. My atlas waits on the floor near my desk; I reach for it almost every evening.

I've been getting in touch with a lot of old (and new) friends, which is great. My e-mail inbox is consistently full. And the time keeps on flying by.

...

We meet here at this strange angle,
in the cross hairs of circumstance.
Simply living and leaving, we are, and meaning, all the while,
to reconcile what we know with who we've become.

...

I wonder:
• Am I guiding my own life or is God guiding me? I'm the one who must act and decide, but whose impetus is behind it all?
• Do all decisions seem right only after they're made?
• Am I the only one whose decisions all seem to turn out well?

...

Perhaps I have too many friends. Can I end on this,
call this the end? Our friendship is not a thing
any more than my hands are things, my feet, my dreams.

I'm grouchy today, too outward, too forward-looking.
I want to leave here with everything finished, loose ends tied,
nothing unraveled. Messy knots or scattered thoughts? I think I must choose

perplexity.

Lately I sleep on my side, my extra pillow
along my back, thinking
it could be a person. But I'm glad it's not a person.

Gravity

The gist of it:
• I'm quitting my job at the end of the month (18 more days of work left...but shhh, because they don't know it yet...though I don't think anyone who reads this and knows where I work would tattle on me).
• At the beginning of September, I'm taking my car, computer and camera, and hitting the road for a couple of months to see the rest of the U.S. (I've only been to the western states and a very small portion of North Carolina) and some more of Canada.
• Then maybe I'll find where I want to live next. Or maybe I'll just find what I find.
• I fully plan on dropping in on anyone and everyone who wants to host a nomad for a day or two or more.

More details to come.

...

We should let ourselves be known
in our sleeping and waking, in that most human
of endeavors---the moment between night and day
when gravity binds us lightly to the earth.

Who are these people in my poems? Most times I do not know

Banquet
8-3-05

Table for one
Love these hours, the glow of them, the light they bring to your eyes.
You were born creating, you make your days in the way you know
best, carving into them with color and form, adding lines,
bending hours like bits of wire, a handful of pins.
Open the shutters, sweep the back steps, shift your weight
smoothly as you work. You’re standing taller now.
In just a few days you’ll feel at home
wherever you are. Just a few days more.

A steak knife
The church steeple is often the landmark that guides me
back to my front door after a long evening out finding people
shooting pool with strangers, the postman, a neighbor.
We find each other, we don’t talk much, just line up the shots.
Tonight I could have won, but she was watching
and I couldn’t see straight. The balls kept jumping out of pockets,
skidding and scudding in the worst way.
When I got home, Gloria knew I was drunk. She rolled over. I slept.

Bread and butter
Smoke always fills those windows around seven-thirty. The alarm goes off.
They must be awake. I can see the lights go on and off in each room.
He grinds the coffee, his special kind. She spends a long time at the sink.
Washing, she’s always washing. The black toast smell must be thick.
My balcony looks over their windows. I can see they have no children.
It is a pity I let my cat outside that one day. He never liked the rain.
Yellow finches would be at the bird feeder today, if there was one.
They never see me watching. The birds, the lovers.

© 2005 April K Szuch

Forget that it's Monday

Triptych
9-15-04

Moon
Wide enough grows the day,
small enough the evening becomes,
early enough comes morning, again,
with hair like a gypsy child---bathed
in a river, warmed by the sun---
standing in the reeds, where the shadows
are stripes of gold, blue, gold, blue, gold, naked,
eyes open wide enough.

Salt
Clasp these strands of hair, press them
in a locket, where they will not rust or shine.
What color were her eyes when she spoke to you?
Do not remember the words;
remember the eyes, fire-dark, like magma
from the center of the earth---transient,
fierce, volatile. Put a name to that color, make a name for that gaze
while you remember how she died.

Stone
There is nothing in sight. Nothing plus a flock of sheep---
I don’t think to count myself---still equals nothing.
He wanted to camp here and I wanted to travel
to Italy, where I’m sure all the olive trees
are hazy blue like in the French paintings. I trust art.
We compromised, I think. And we have the sheep
to contemplate. I should have brought my oils.
Watercolor cannot capture this shade, this edge
and depth of nothing. I paint anyway, at least
until dinner, when he teaches me the French word for light.

© 2004 April K Szuch