Waiting

Waiting.
When will your letter arrive?

Always Waiting

Waiting to be let in
waiting to be let out--
what difference does it make?

I am always waiting
(if I feign sleep don't
let that fool you).

I am the watcher
a being-awake
sleepless, standing ground,

so you may dream.     

Notes

The word "wait," as a substantive, first indicated a watchman, a sentinel, someone awake in the night, even a night musician. Traceable to an Old High German word, wahta, or watchman, guard, a "being awake," the word is also related to the Gothic wakan, to be awake.

The first photo is of my cat, Dante, peering through the window at the yard. The second photo was taken last week on Vernon Street in Halifax, a black cat waiting.

Quick. Exchange. Recycle. Reuse.

I discover the "quick message" file on my cell phone and think it might make a good story if I rearrange the entries. What it makes is not "good" so much as funny.  And every sequence leads to the same spot--I think--a leap into bed. Really? Sexting, it turns out, is inevitable. So too is sorrow. Where there is a telephone, someone is waiting.  And nearly wordless. 

Exchange I (Recycle.)

 Where u at?

 B there soon.

Tipsy?

I'm gonna B late.

What's up?

Booty call.

U know u want me.

RU up 4 it?

Your place or mine?

Let's do it!

Exchange II  (Repeat.)

Do it! 
You up?

Your place?
Yours. Gonna be late.

Where are you?
Boy call.

Again?
B there soon.


 

Exchange III (Restraint.)

Soon
be there


Want
up

Call
do

You 
too

Late

Photos are of a plastic drop cloth hung out to dry. September, 2011, Halifax. Recycled plastic; reusable words. 

Just be patient, dinner will soon be ready

What We're Here For

17 February 2010
San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico

Wind blows the dust out of the hills, off of the roadways, from dusty parking lots.  I eat a fish taco and drink a limonada and wait for Marike to come back to land.  She's on the boat with Salvador, the electrician, doing repairs.  I've been online all day trying to figure out how to get the computer to stop thinking the gps feed is another mouse or pointing system.  No luck.  Next to me a couple speaks urgently, quietly, into a telephone.  There has been an acidente grave.  They seem to be everywhere these accidents.  We've had word from home that our doctor's daughter was thrown from a car and hangs between life and death; her pelvis shattered, she's in an induced coma in the hospital. 

Inside the bar, Cesaria Evoria sings and men drink alone, so I've come out to sit in the sun and watch the street--and the dust--blow by.  The couple next to me goes on speaking softly, anxiously, in Spanish, reviewing the details--four young people in the car; one girl--the woman's neice, and three young men. Suddenly the man breaks out into English, his accent pure LA--SH I I I T!  How'd that happen?  Nothin'
 moves fast here, not even a burnin' bar.  What you got to be in a hurry for?

So I eat slowly and watch the palms bend in the wind. 

Waiting for Snow