It's nearly ninety degrees outside today, and I'm waiting. I'm waiting for Sophie's bus to get here. I'm waiting for the weather to get cooler. I'm waiting for election day. I'm waiting for the doctor to call me back about medical marijuana for Sophie. I'm waiting for Oliver's existential dread to abate. I'm waiting for my friend's sister to die. I'm waiting for a break, for a ship, for a sign.
A Close Call
Dusk and the sea is thus and so. The cat
from two fields away crossing through the grapes.
It is so quiet I can hear the air
in the canebrake. The blond wheat darkens.
The glaze is gone from the bay and the heat lets go.
They have not lit the lamp at the other farm yet
and all at once I feel lonely. What a surprise.
But the air stills, the heat comes back
and I think I am all right again.
-- Jack Gilbert, from Refusing Heaven
I wish I could help... it pains me to hear about sophie. waiting sucks.
ReplyDeleteIt is sad work waiting for someone to die. You want them here forever but you want them not to suffer and be sick. So a small part of you thinks it would be best for them to go but the rest of you fights it.
ReplyDeleteKeep us posted on the marijuana.
This is a weird time. It just is.
ReplyDeletebreathe...my dear...breathe
ReplyDeleteAs full of despair as this sounds, sometimes I just feel as if it is all a waiting for death. Sitting there, shuffling the cards, laying them out in one more game of Solitaire, just waiting.
ReplyDeleteI know this is can't be, ISN'T the truth, but sometimes doesn't it just feel that way?
I hope you don't have to wait long. I hate that inbetween time when you are waiting for things to settle and become ok again.
ReplyDeletethat kind of waiting is terrible and oppressive.
ReplyDeleteWe're still doing a lot of waiting over here, too (even though the election is finally over.) Went to the liver specialist yesterday, hoping for some answers for my husband's rather strange diagnosis of "fatty liver," which is apparently quite curable if you are obese or an alcoholic, but has no cure if you are thin and healthy and don't drink much. We went with the hope that we might find some answers to whether his liver is damaged from the condition. Unfortunately, we found out that we just have more waiting in store for us, (at least 6 weeks) for more sophisticated bloodwork, and then possibly a liver biopsy, right before Christmas, no less. And I know that people all over the world are waiting for news about loved ones, and it is common to man, but still. The waiting is hard and it's hard to be strong and have hope when your own body feels like it's giving out more than half the time.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the self-pity rant. Somehow this post and the poem expressed the shadows that seem to be hanging over me these days...