The most uncomfortable hide-a-bed in history enters retirement

Once it was the skeleton at every feast

the ghost of every Christmas past

opening it’s metal maw for every guest and 

relative sentenced to the spare room.

With a rigid rack and an 

insufficiency of foam

it haunted dreams and 

midnight meditations alike.

Until it came to this, cast off 

with no charity in any heart.

No more guests, no more groans

and only the wind to strum it’s springs.

Now insects and small animals 

shelter in it’s arms

and it greets dawn and sunset alike with equal 

equanimity.

It marks the phases of the moon, the seasons

the circling sweep of the heavens

it’s first shooting stars

the dance of the northern lights.

Snow does not chill, rain does not drown it 

for the sun and wind dry it.

birds have sung from it

and now a guest itself 

the meadow brings it flowers. 

Guy (In progress)

Moose and Calf

"in the natural world there are no kings.
I will also leave office and return, an old farmhand, plowing the fields."

from Seeing Off Prefect Ji Mu as He Leaves Office and Goes East of the River
by Wang Wei

"I was so busy rushing headlong into the future, loving libraries and

books and authors with all my heart and soul, was so consumed

with becoming myself that I simply didn't notice that I was short,

homely and untalented."

     From the introduction to Bradbury Stories ( William Morrow publ.)

                             by Ray Bradbury

                         

Since retiring in May this is the first time I have the luxury of  

sitting down at home and fiddling with my books. It seems to 

be a time to read, think and look, both forward and backward.

My books; mirrors to the reflections, loves, lives of so many 

others, both real and imagined, help as well.

"We live forward, but understand backwards'

                       from Reading Dante: From Here to Eternity

by Prue Shaw

"And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,

Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,

Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,

Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,

Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces. "

from Dolor

  by Theodore Roethk

I have not been visiting other blogs or posting lately.

We have been preparing for a trip to the cabin and I

have been learning to edit my photos on a MacBook Air.

Also I have been getting used to my retirement. We 

imbue things, birthdays, graduations, anniversaries

with great meaning mark our calendars and then the 

the sun comes up we make breakfast and things roll

along pretty much as usual. Retirement seems to be 

one of the more significant marks, for thirteen years I 

went to the same building sat in the same office and 

talked to some subset of the same people each of who

shared a common work calendar but also had their own

personal calendars with other days circled for new jobs,

moves, births, deaths and their own retirement all of

us circling in a kind of Brownian motion. Stepping 

away from that dance, I have found I still have my 

own interests, nature, books, my own places, our home

in the city and our cabin, my family and friends. And 

while I will miss some of the people I now have the

chance to try new things and spend more time with the

people, places and activities  I want to spend time with

with.

We have been at the cabin a little more than a week.

Here are a few of the things we have seen

Under a granary at the farm vixen 3 kits

"And help me understand this person that I've gradually become,

Yet long ago imagined - a perfectly ordinary one

Whose mansion is the future, but whose setting is a 

Landscape of a summer afternoon, with a sky heavy in the distance

And a book resting lightly in his hands."

  from A Parking Lot With Trees

     by John Koethe

Mezzo Cammin

"Half of my life is gone, and I have let
   The years slip from me and have not fulfilled
   The aspiration of my youth, to build
   Some tower of song with lofty parapet.
Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret
   Of restless passions that would not be stilled,
   But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,
   Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;
Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past
   Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,—
   A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,—
   And hear above me on the autumnal blast
   The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

So I am officially retired,  from working, not blogging.

"O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

He chortled in his joy.

"This is the life I wanted, and could never see.

For almost twenty years I thought that it was enough:

That real happiness was either unreal, or lost, or endless,

And that remembrance was as close to it as I could ever come.

And I believed that deep in the past, buried in my heart

Beyond the depth of sight, there was a kingdom of peace.

And so I never imagined that when peace would finally come

It would be on a summer evening, a few blocks away from home

In a small suburban park, with some children playing aimlessly

In an endless light, and a lake shining in the distance."

from In the Park

by John Koethe

“And beyond the Wild Wood again. he asked:

Where its all dim and blue, and one sees what may

be hills or perhaps they mayn t, and something like

the smoke of towns, or is it only cloud-drift.

Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,"

said the Rat."And that's something that doesn't matter,

either to you or to me. I've never been there,

and I'm never going' nor you either, if you've got any

sense at all.”

from The Wind in the Willows

by Kenneth Grahame

"As we walk our own ground, on foot or in mind, we need 

to be able to recite stories about hills and trees and animals, 

stories that root us in this place and keep it alive. The sounds we 

make, the patterns we draw, the plots we trace may be as native 

to the land as deer trails or bird songs. The more fully we 

belong to our place, the more likely that our place will 

survive without damage. We cannot create myth from scratch,

 but we can recover or fashion stories that will help us to see 

where we are, how others have lived here, and how we

 ourselves should live."

from Telling The Holy

          Scott Russell Sanders

Last week I notified my employer of my intention to retire

this spring. The above quote indicates in part, what I hope

to do. Which is to learn and  participate in the rhythm of 

life and the change of seasons that occurs in the area 

surrounding our cabin. There will also be time for books, 

hobbies, friends, and family. The movement of clouds and 

stars against the sky, the winds across water, through

 trees will hopefully not find me too busy or too tired to 

pause for a moment to listen to their songs. 

The night before we left the cabin this year the young bear that has

been hanging around the last year or so crossed the road. Not a 

great shot but a good reminder.

This is the life I wanted, and could never see.

For almost twenty years I thought that it was enough: 

That real happiness was either unreal, or lost, or endless,

And that remembrance was as close to it as I could ever come. 

And I believed that deep in the past, buried in my heart 

Beyond the depth of sight, there was a kingdom of peace. 

And so I never imagined that when peace would finally come

It would be on a summer evening, a few blocks away from home 

In a small suburban park, with some children playing aimlessly 

In an endless light, and a lake shining in the distance.

from In The Park

By John Koethe