Goodbye, and: Rhythm of Sleeping on One’s Feet

Goodbye

mistranslation after Szymborska

Do it, my sunlight— Do it, my pale yellow sunlight— No more political wreckage or smart asses, just a cup of tea with gray sea salt. No moment is banal, no where is without floors, Goodbye my fake bedspring— fake broken window— Don’t call down the cosmos; just journey to my bedside, because nobody has done it— Poor, thin, sunlight— I didn’t mean to do it like this, but all my gorgeous weeping klutzes are swarming with love.

Rhythm of Sleeping on One’s Feet

Lucky sags slowly, until bag and basket touch the ground, then straightens up with a start and begins to sag again. Rhythm of one sleeping on his feet.

samuel beckett, Waiting for Godot

Here we are it feels like a turn, if arbitrary.

Flash of bird chase in first light, beer bottle, brown peaches on the damp bench—

The pain of seeing the world exactly as we left it. Pain and delight,

as the curtain of day lifts to reveal our work.

Later, our charge may be hard to discern as the orchestra of day reaches its full din—ah,

see here are the garbage trucks like a blessing, one driver calls:

Hey Rob! Rob! Rob!Hey Rob! Rob! until Rob turns,

the motors grind and the herd moves forward. Where were we?

I’m sure it’s time to be standing, feel the minutes tug at my ankles

and from here can just see back across the curve of earth

the tail end of yesterday: people so tired all they want to do is sleep,

but, actually, want each other’s company more. There they are, outside,

at the edges of where the dark settles, peaches, and beer,

the sloppy birds dropping seed from the feeder, husks and oily kernels down the hourglass of evening—

Each person’s flagging presence sustains the others’: from here I can see that current, both faint and brilliant

pass from one to the next with almost no effort, after all—

Something we brought but didn’t know we had,

like stage directions we both whisper, and hear.