stalks of wild grasses
reach skyward through drifting snow —
brittle remembrance
Winter Haiku #3
8 Replies
Tag Archives: aging
Worn into the Fabric
A pair of corduroy pants
sit folded on the ironing board,
their faded blue almost grey
in the early morning light.
They have passed in turn
from each of our children
to the next,
stories of young lives
worn into the fabric.
The ridges have been
diminished by the seasons
in places where they have bent
for a doll or a puddle,
or knelt for a story,
leaving nearly smooth,
but still patterned,
softness.
They are now too small
for any of our family —
yet my wife has pinned
a piece of cloth,
edges folded and ironed
neatly for sewing,
over a hole in the knee.
She’ll stitch them carefully together
one evening as we sit.
I haven’t asked her why —
perhaps she hopes our youngest
may wear them one more time,
or there is something else
her patching might repair.
Tanka #4
the old sentry watches
over mist and heavy water
weathered by time yet
outlasting the faded road
no escape from loneliness
Tanka #3
hundreds of winters
have loosened the barriers
between wind and warmth —
the coldest mornings leave gifts,
delicate intermingling
Margin Notes
Thumbing through the copy of
Merton’s Birds of Appetite
she found on our living room shelf,
my wife asks me who it had belonged to,
curious about the writing in the margins.
I look and recognize the hand of an old friend;
we used to talk about Zen and Shakespeare.
She wonders if I ever hear from her —
but I have grown so much quieter,
and I can’t bear to intrude
upon spaces so large.
What would I say?
Tanka #2
Rust and fallen snow
rest upon cracks and fissures
revealed by soft light,
confirmation of failure
weathered by time’s measured grace.
Antique Doors
I salvaged a set of antique doors
that were piled in a yard
close by the ocean
with other detritus
from a torn-down house.
Hoping the owner would let me take them,
I talked with him
and listened to his stories
about who had passed through them,
what rooms they had separated.
It isn’t easy to find ones just so,
with the hardware still intact.
Perhaps if I hold on to them,
I thought,
and shape them here or there,
they’ll fill up gaps —
shut out the draft from the
old ice-box pantry,
dampen the kitchen noise that drifts
so easily up the stairs
when our children are sleeping.
But I wonder
if I will have time to use them,
or if someday
someone will come
and collect them from me.
Surrounded by Dust and Calloused
As a wedding present for my wife
I rebuilt an antique dressing table
that I had found discarded on a sidewalk.
Coaxing the yards of inlay
into the old grooves
wore away awareness of time.
I’d like to make furniture,
and leave my shirts and ties in the hallway closet.
Surrounded by dust
and calloused,
silent inside the cacophony of tools.
If only I had planned for that life,
I could run down from the top floor of the barn
and watch the children step off the bus.
I could speak slowly about my day
and show my wife the curve in a piece of ash.
Copper Pots
For a few years in my early twenties, my father gave me a piece of copper cookware every once in a while. Cooking was one of the ways we managed to connect, and the pieces were beautiful. And they were substantial. Weighty. As long as I took good care of them, they would last forever. I imagined I was building a permanent collection. I was building my life.
Over time, copper develops spots, and if you scrub it with regular soap and a sponge, it scratches quite easily. Instead, you have to use special cleaners and stay diligent about keeping up with them. My wife and I have occasionally fallen behind in this task, especially when we run out of the cleaner, which never rises quickly back to the top of the shopping list. After only a use or two, the pots begin to turn a mottled, and then even dingy, brown and stop reflecting the light of the room.
Eventually, though, some space opens in the time we have after a meal, and we get back on the bandwagon and clean the pots. But lately I’ve begun to wonder why we do it. Yes, they’re beautiful. And they might just last forever, or least for hundreds of years. But I’m not going to.
I do keep washing. There is something quite pleasing about the task itself, in the possibility of absorption in the water, the shine of the metal, the repetitive circular motion. Each time, though, what I hold in my hands feels a bit more like just a pot.
bussokuseki 