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Here’s a poem about making the best of the current state of affairs – Ron
I Like to Stay Home
I like to walk out front and look at the Mexican
sage or to the west side of the house where
my neighbor Jim has put in some new leaded
glass decorated with roses.
Around back is a clothesline, usually hung with
laundry. It’s very pleasant to sit on the steps
with one of the cats and watch the breeze move
a blouse hung upside down like an acrobat.
My friends go to Bangkok and the Black Forest,
but I settle for house and yard, a dozen
amaryllis, garbage cans with numbers on them,
a possum to summon me back to this world.
At two a.m. I get up and go outside in my white
pajamas. Above is the butter-colored moon,
underfoot crushed mint. Over there is the possum
so I tell him to shoo, go home.
I clap my hands delicately like a lady at court
applauding the harpsichord, and follow his tail
around the corner. Jim has left a light on
and there are those roses, the ones that never
get to drop their petals on a blue runner like
they do at my house.
Ron Koertge is the current poet laureate of South Pasadena. Contact him at this address: ronkoepoet@gmail.com
