Pastoral
Nothing here is ever done;
Every motion is so slow,
As the pendulum of waning sun
Damps the evening to Cointreau;
The front door pauses
(Think Madame Tussaud's)
Until its groaning causes
The very earth to close,
As the elevator, in no hurry
For its own laggard door,
Sails to worlds past all worry
On the sleeping upper floor,
Like that crumbing rental dory
We punted long ago
Through the blazing morning glory
Beneath demoralized châteaux,
Where sun still crawls through tunnels,
Where still the gardens laze,
And the plodding river funnels
All of heaven into haze:
May the lapping, fragile Braille
Of those ancient currents coat us
When, years from now, we fail,
From grief, from life, to notice.
Rue de Varenne
June 20th, 2008
Explanation
I was thinking of the time we paddled down the river at Brantôme in the Dordogne with the Holdsworths, a kind of “all in the golden afternoon” moment, and thinking, may the memory preserve us from the pressure of our current life. I wrote this in Paris our last full day there, during a bittersweet day of conference calls, a lunch, a dinner, two piano tuners, and an insane neighbor complaining about the piano.
Rue de Varenne
June 20th, 2008