Deep Thoughts
December 30th, 2005Save as PDF
Deep Thoughts
What’s missing? Not a friend,
I’m sitting here with a good one.
Not atmosphere, God knows,
We’re in the midst of vineyards,
Breathing rich Burgundian air.
Expectations, maybe, are too high.
I hoped we’d reach some deep
Communion, bonding over our coronas.
But the conversation’s lame and fitful,
So I’m smoking much too fast.
I wonder if my friend’s as bored as I am
With our lack of spark. There hasn’t been
An insight uttered since we dragged
These chairs outdoors, and what’s the purpose
Of a starry night in France, if not to make us brilliant?
But even though the Milky Way’s a bright
Cool spill of light above us, almost casting
Shadows on the lawn, and even though
The two of us have known each other decades,
We’re really trying to get acquainted here tonight.
No wonder we act awkward. Our wives, inside, asleep,
Have never needed a cigar, or foreign sky
To consummate their conversations.
Words flow like Beaujolais, and deep
Rapport seems to splash about them.
But circled by these grapevines, whose ancient roots
Are locked together just beneath us
In a vast and woody knot, we sit out
On this lawn, as if the stars and vines
Were not a challenge to our very souls.
So just as cats avoid a pond, we shun this gift,
And silently acknowledge to each other
That thoughts serene and grave are certainly being thought,
But that utterance, perhaps, would be too earthly
A medium in which to frame them.
Now the moon is rising, and it’s getting cool.
We haven’t said much, but we haven’t lost much, either;
Life is long, and offers many evenings, after all.
We show no haste, but go indoors to tell our wives
About the glories of the summer sky in France.
January 3rd, 2006 at 12:16 pm e
John,
Last February I flew to N.Y. with Jan FitzHenry to see Christo’s Gates project. We had a memorable lunch with your wife, Holly, and my family at the boathouse in Central Park. Jan gave me a copy of the Millennial Pedestrian in March.
This morning I received an email from Jan directing me to this site. Now I feel compelled to comment because the poem above is the exact same one I read when I first flipped through the pages of your book. In fact, it was the only poem I read that first time. I liked it very much. It stayed with me. I took from it both a strong visual image and a strong sense of the awkward moment…and getting past it. I’m not articulating it well but you certainly did.
Millennial Pedestrian sat with a pile of books by my bed since last March. As a librarian, I select the fiction for my library. This means that I sample a lot of new authors and have a lot of “required” reading. The books that I own seem to languish at the bottom of the pile while I read the ones with the due dates. I finally sat down and read through most of your book in mid-December. I thought at the time that I needed to spend more time with it after Christmas.
Jan threw a wine-tasting party on New Years Day. We guests were required to write down a new year’s resolution and seal it in an envelope with our name on the front. Next year, we’ll have to ‘fess up as to whether we kept our resolutions or not. The point is that my resolution was simple… to read more poetry. You and your collection of poems are the reason I made that resolution. Thank you for them.
Barb H.
Sycamore, Illinois