Sorrows of the heart at 0200....

sorrows of the heart at 0200 when you cannot sleep



When the closest of those to us break our hearts....

the only thing to do

the only thing I can do
is revisit the past

so I offer you a bit of my past that is long gone with the party line dial telephone, Idlewood, Comet,

asparagus picked fresh....


I know nobody much reads this and that makes me very happy. I am not in the market for anything. so fish-mongers be on your way.

The rest of you get it so enjoy:

The Persistence of Memory

By

Caroline Robinson

Memory walks before me and

pulls me from behind;

in a moment time can drift

away from now to long ago

green fields of alfalfa and milkweed,

where surprised snakes in up-ended haystacks

slither away, black ropes twisting through

rough, dried yellow bundles;

purple and scarlet Hollyhock ladies,

bravely smiling in broken flower dresses

glad for their moment

soon discarded, wilt in the dust;

bumblebees hovering low, lazy

tempting the jelly jar to capture them,

angrily bumping fat bodies against their prison walls,

sweaty hands they see but cannot attack

feel buzzing anger vibrate through the glass

finally, dangerously, lift the lid;

once again freed, content

shopping blossom to blossom

fat with summer nectar, all is forgotten;

then the old cow pasture moos and I tramp through

finding the faint path to

the black pond deep in the forest

where bloodsuckers still wait for me

and the oak still lies on its side where it fell

when lightening struck it down

so many years ago;

where fat, ripe blackberries hang thickly

bursting warm and sweet on my tongue;

the past then wanders over

to the long gone barn that

rustled with each step and

sunlight broke through

slotted weather-worn boards

shining stripes into empty stalls,

dust, straw, skunk, and rotting wood

mixed an odor of disuse;

stepping out a stiff, creaking door

echoing giggles drop

from apple trees in the orchard

like years falling away

like the rope swing blurring sky and ground

above and beneath a supine figure

hair sweeping the grass;

the night sang me to sleep

on sweet smelling sheets dried by the sun

its song of crickets and whip-o-wills,

the soft wind blowing gently through the screens

the scent of pine and lilac and cows

lowing good--night from the next farm over;

then anxious calls like wild cats and crows

lure me back to where I started

staring into a computer’s face;

dog and kids, dinner and friends

pull at me like time

to be here now

and so I am, for now, Here

ever present in the place where

                                                          time and memory persist