Bottlebrush Bokeh

Bottlebrush Bokeh, originally uploaded by TomRaven.

As though the same blooms had come back, white freaked with red
And heavily scented. Or a cut branch of pear blooms before its time,
“Forced.” Time brings us into bloom and we wait, busy, but wait
For the unforced flow of words and intercourse and sleep and dreams
In which the past seems to portend a future which is just more
Daily life. The cat has a ripped ear. He fights, he fights all
The tom cats all the time. There are blood gouts on a velvet seat.
Easily sponged off: but these red drops on a book of Stifter’s, will
I remember and say at some future time, “Oh, yes, that was the day
Hodge had a torn ear and bled on the card table?” Poor
Hodge, battered like an old car. Silence flows into my mind. It
Is spring. It is also still really winter. Not a day when you say,
“What a beautiful spring day.” A day like twilight or evening when
You think, “I meant to watch the sun set.” And then comes on
To rain. “You’ve got to take,” says the man at the store, “the rough
With the smooth.” A window to the south is rough with raindrops
That, caught in the screen, spell out untranslatable glyphs.

From Hymn to Life by James Schuyler (1923 - 1991)

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