There are some creative millionaires in my neighborhood. I live in a charming c. 1920 building with 18 units, which was once the maids' quarters of 19th and Aloha. I just cannot get over the gorgeous gardens and Craftsman/Victorian style of the houses that surround my tiny castle.
I frequently walk home from my favorite pub down the length of Aloha St. Massive poplars with their giant leaves provide pleasing shade in the summertime. The sidewalks are cracked by the roots of the trees, and inscribed with names of children who have most likely grown up. ("King Darren" is a favorite).
If you're at Aloha and walk one block West of 15th, you'll find a large blue house with fences and terribly perfect shrubbery. Like many of these humble abodes, I've never seen a soul enjoying the expansive verandah. But there is something to make a note of: every month, the Master of the house locates a poem, copies it dozens of times on brightly colored paper, and places them inside a covered wooden box attached to the front gate. The poems further shielded from the elements by a ziploc bag inside the box.
Each month since I've lived in my current location--34, exactly--I've stopped by the box and picked up a poem. Initially it reminded me of a house in my neighborhood in Jacksonville, Riverside, which had a big white sheet of paper to write on. I wrote Rumi poetry on it and even once left a CD there that I particularly loved that week, and that was mentioned in a story in the Florida Times-Union. hehe.
Anyway, it's a mixed bag. Last winter I particularly loved a poem about whales...I'll find it and post for you. But here is this month's:
The Poem for April 2011
The Double-Play
In his sea lit
distance, the pitcher winding
like a clock about to chime comes down with
the ball, hit
sharply under the artificial
banks of arc-lights, bounds like a vanishing string
over the green
to the shortstop magically
scoops to his right whirling above his invisible
shadows
in the dust redirects
its flight to the running poised second baseman
pirouettes
leaping, above the slide, to throw
from mid-air, across the colored tightened interval
to the leaning-
out first baseman ends the dance
drawing it disappearing into his long brown glove
stretches. What
is too swift for deception
is final, lost, among the loosened figures
jogging off the field
(the pitcher walks), casual
in the space where the poem has happened.
Robert Wallace
1932-1999
(And they always add an explanation, herewith:)
"The son of parents who ran a small factory that turned out cherry and walnut furniture of their design, Robert Wallace developed an early appreciation for the well-made object. It had something to do with the painstaking care and the love of the materials and subject that led Robert to notoriety as a poet and teacher. His book Writing Poems reveals the poetic craft from within the poem's creation to its meaning."
Clearly, these are people who want to educate as well as entertain the neighborhood!
So I was surprised to find another "spring" poem at another, less-traveled intersection recently. I can't recall where it was for the life of me. But some investigating needs to be done into this new find. I find it not a little bit pervy! And why not, I suppose, when the squirrels and birds are out to play? But...just look:
Spring
Your breath against my cheek and ear
a most caress from deep within you
past the ramparts that appear
before me as I try again to think this through
to make the case for it how better now
to let this closure come
the long embrace encompassing
my eyelids set the moment done
and done for now and made anew
a history that I can taste
if you allow again allow me in
to see you through and through
you brush my lips with yours
you find my fingertips
C. 2011 Guy Holliday all rights reserved
www.ghcapitolhill.blogspot.com
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