On Being in the Middle of a Time

Though light is fading
and the dogwood tree is budding
with red berries seen
never in seasons past,
(I wasn't there
or I didn't care
to notice.)
The world stays blue
less some green from weeks before,
Then turns white,
unseasonably,
premature grey in an animal
that's no longer at-party,
Not-here, anyway.

Dark times dark,
Times of gathering clouds
like the scratchy old Fred Waring record
played for a generation now gone
to bring hope in times of war.

No war really now.
Just times.
No song no theme no real public expression
of hope do I hear in my house
on the street in the air
on the horizon.
What then?
What are we to do now
that we won't recognize
what is all about
and cannot be denied?
Like an odorless mist that not marked
does not pass for that
never-nothing.

A pie bakes in the oven of history
whether Grandma Grumpmedia tends to it
or no.
We must be allowed to smell its smell,
Savor the anticipation,
Pile the plates and forks
awaiting
the community meal.

We teeter on the edge of time
and generations to follow
will think something
or nothing
while we moulder under freshly mowed
food
for the birds,

Unbidden and unable
to do more for the future
than we have.
We live today.
So now,
Not never.

On Never Becoming A Farmer, A Milkman, But Always Becoming

I think I should post.
But then I feel the lack.
I need to do something worthwhile.
Then come back.
But that takes the day.
And it's now night.
I will listen to Raga.
Eat pretzel sticks.
And Bill Monroe picking at somebody's house.
Only because I have never heard either.
Not because either somehow should identify me.
Who I am.
That doesn't matter now.
Really.
Identity is vegetative.
And I vegetate.
Transforming is pro-creative.
And I create.
Create a Think.

Another time we'd be taking in the harvest.
And then snore deep farmer snores.
Or become a milkman.
And early morning chores.
That hat and truck.
"Morning, Mrs. Somethingorother!"
"We're needing cheese today. And two quarts."

No.
No more of it now.
No field for me to gaze at.
No cow.
No funny truck.
No funny hat.
Time-go-become.
Not be stuck.
With yesterday's.
Past.