And so, on the final day of the year,
a few ‘American sentences’ –
broken into several lines, as
seems to suit:
Numerology –
seven, a challenging year,
moves to eight: balance.
*
So many dying
around me now –
rude, popping off
when they’re younger!
*
Tonight with my TV –
best seat in the house
for the new year fireworks.
(For ‘house’ read ‘country.’)
*
I explore zuihitsu,
decide not to get caught
in that form (yet).
*
In a garden corner,
the splash of
red poinsettia’s
big flat leaves.
Year’s end. My daily verses,
what have they shown? Mostly, just
love with small cat. It’s enough.
This week between Christmas and New Year
I’ve been in retreat – at home, doors and windows,
curtains and blinds closed against the heat;
neglecting the marketing I should be doing
for my new books, and the dusting and ironing.
‘Next week,’ I tell one who phones to meet. ‘Now
I have appointments.’ (I don’t say they’re with me.)
I’m dabbling in some of my old books of magic,
trying out new spells and rituals, toying with
lapsed meditations and manifestation techniques.
I’m preparing idiosyncratic but tasty tidbits to eat;
deferring the exercise routine; catching up with
the new Doctor Who, and of course the yacht race.
‘I might never emerge,’ I whisper to myself, and giggle.
I’m looking at a picture of penguins
standing stiffly upright, wings/flippers
clasped to their sides. They are covered
in fluffy white fur; perhaps they are
youngsters? The ground and the air
enclose them in unrelieved white.
What must it be like, surrounded
by cold like that, knowing nothing
different ever? A whole world of cold.
I am sprawled in sarong and thongs
in front of a large electric fan. And
I’d rather. I never want to experience
unchanging, immersive, monotonous,
all day and every day, paralysing cold.
Heat and thunder.
Fire and flood.
I live in a small oasis
of little damage so far.
My astrologer friend
predicts worse in future.
I tell her, ‘Probably, we
won’t still be here by then.’
‘That’s a rather strange
kind of comfort,’ she says.
