By Pat Fero
The Rhythm of Life
The earth knows.
Current flows to the continental divide.
Planting season in Portugal.
Monet meadow flowers the mountain.
The earth knows.
Storms wash the land, reviving life.
Fires sear old pine, sowing growth.
Snow slides shatter silence
sculpting the hillside.
Creatures know.
Salmon swim upstream.
Cubs emerge in Spring.
Hatchling turtles scramble to the sea.
Creatures know.
Wolves sense diseased marrow.
Whales beach in the shallows.
Death comes as it does and so it goes.
Humans know.
The night sleep and the day break.
Joyful hours mesh one hot summer eve
with Monday morning routine.
Humans know.
Life on 24/7.
Chop, clock, tick. stop. Diced thoughts.
Manage the moment lost.
I’m late, I’m late.
Apologize, euphemize.
The rat race, time crunch, time flies,
time is money. Catch you later.
But I don’t know.
Days go by as night. Night, days.
Weeks pass unnoticed.
Where am I now?
What happened when?
Time lost. I dawdle and find ways,
“How are you today?”
Today. Day. Fine today.
Time threads tangled, stuttering, staccato memories, shapeless images
gray, blue – green, pink, yellow.
A Monet without perspective.
Last year, decades passed
a blur and a muddle.
I wandered cursing Alice.
Was it the March Hare? May?
The Queen of Hearts? Spades?
Why does it make a difference?
A Monet has perspective.
This year, I am the eye of the needle.
My rhythm of life pulses and beats
and so it goes seamless transition
one day to the next, a flow
mindlessly sculpting a stream
to the river to the sea.
It’s quiet this night
inside my mind’s bouquet.
Slender stalks and weeping willow boughs
sway into clusters and tiny blossoms.
Yellow and red and parrot blue
move through green leafy shadows.
I know the clock stopped and rats don’t race.
Time can’t crunch nor fly
or buy my ice cream
Bubble Gum Dreams.
My rhythm of life pulses and beats,
then flows as it does and so it goes…
Cold air in July from a vent
on a windowsill in a hospital room
killed the mums,
but the lilies, yellow, bloomed.
A precious gift, this fluidity.
PF
