Skies
are blue; not a cloud drifts by.
Air is
cool and dry.
There's
a gentle breeze going nowhere.
Eastern
mountains from fog unfurled.
Standing
water in every pot’s dish
Emptied
so mosquitoes cannot.
Birds
pass by palm tree hands
Under
commercial jets smaller than gnats.
Understand
another typhoon is on the way,
So I want
to take a long bike ride,
Do that today and go swimming tomorrow
Knowing rain and wind may come
Barreling in, bulls eye, over Taichung.
Til the giant ball of moisture blows by
Tomorrow
When we make two trips to the hospital;
For her to have a blood test and
Then in
the evening a consultation.
I walked
to pick a paperback
Edition
of Moby Dick
Because carrying
a ten-pound illustrated volume,
From the
bathroom towel rack
To read
a page each dump,
Wasn’t
cutting it;
It would
take two years to finish it,
If I stop at illustrations.
Returned I to read in the cafeteria
Of the
cancer building basement.
The
greatest novel in English literature,
From a
writer who died an unrealized master,
Alcoholic, pauper, clerk,
Reduced
to unwanted fodder on a foreign bookshelf,
Free on
Kindle,
And read
on a toilet?
I can
remedy that!
Put it in
my pocket where it belongs,
Thick as
it is,
Ride to
a shady spot
Near three decommissioned tanks
On a
retired sugarcane railroad.
Saturday
evening's ballgame will be cancelled.
"An American in Paris" show in jeopardy
The
Summer of Gershwin, a washout,
Reduced to a
single blog entry.
Only
relish each side of Porgy & Bess
In the
living room
Time to
digest each troubled survivor of Charleston,
Feel the
pain of Bess blind-sided by Crown
No island picnic after seeing Porgy’s light;
Feel her
tears after a
week in delirium,
Back to the man
who would takes her any way
Isn’t
that what couples are best at?
When it
rains all summer
And the
excursions are to the hospital.
August 22, 2019
Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved
