Day: January 24, 2015

 The flu came to sit with me last week,

and when I am sick,

and my body aches and runs amok,

and my mind struggles to be clear,

I think sometimes of the awful beauty of death,

I close my eyes and feel my spinning head,

I lie down on golden sands,

by a roaring ocean, I hear the mournful gulls crying to me,

I can smell the wildflowers on the dune,

the cardinals and bayberry and rose plums,

my lover’s hand is in mine,

I watch the ships on the horizon moving  purposefully,

I am lost in the world of imagination,

who could possibly find me,

or text me, or tell me what to do, or what is due.

I can hardly move, drifting in a sweet

and fevered daze, and it occurs to me,

My world suddenly is so simple,

so pure, I am stripped down to my pure soul,

I have always thought about it, wondered what it was like,

in my childhood I was sent to find the answers to a thousand questions,

I drowned in them, in my bed I am free to leave all that behind,

I take off my shoes and socks,

my shirt and belt and sweater, I go on, happily,

into the wind, into the dunes through the grass,

my hands and feet are warm and dry,

my heart at peace with itself,

my ears chained to the drum and flute of life and death,

the small gull with the large beak calls out to me

again and again and again, it seems he has the answers I have been seeking,

all this time,

I can just listen to him.

 

Maria and I both have the flu, an interesting virus. Its the first time we’ve ever both been sick together, we are somewhat pathetic I think but trying to help each other. The flu is not like a cold, it is something between a cold and getting run over by a tractor. Deb Foster came by to feed the animals, Scott Carrino dropped off some soup. We are fairly wasted, and today is not the kind of day I’m dying to go out in. The town is all cranked up about Demolition Day this Tuesday, George Forss and I will be there taking some photos – flu permitting – as construction crews knocked down the building that is threatening O’Hearn’s Pharmacy.

Maria and I have both probably never seen one another so quiet, the dogs are still as well, the animals in the Pole Barn. A hush descends.

Tomorrow night is the first rehearsal at Hubbard Hall for my play, “Last Day At Maple View Farm,” I’m not going unless my fever is completely gone. I am impressed with the flu, which is popping up all over the country. I am gulping down liquids and making a lot of tea, we are sleeping and reading and mumbling.