You, Friend, are the First Pleasure of my Day
You, friend, are the first pleasure of my day
Because you were my dream’s last syllable;
For in that obscure seam of consciousness —
Indeterminate play
Of the imagined and the perceivable —
Sight of you, and your sound so musical
Were as real as light, thought or happiness.
We talked and laughed and sang together then
As we have talked and laughed in days gone by;
We phantom friends took as much pleasure there
As flesh and blood did when
We two were closer than my poor mind’s eye
Can bring us: There was the same laughing sigh,
The same look of affection, wide and clear.
Awareness of the unreality
Of our encounter stole into my mind,
But still I stay with you. The interplay
Of cherished memory
And dear imagination is a kind
Of waking dream with which dreamers can bind
Fantastic hope to thoughts of open day.
Your Mind is the Willful Child
Your mind is the willful child
that must find within himself
the will to make sound choices
Like weather, the thoughts of illness
blight and discord roll into that mind
and you cannot thwart the weather
There is no cloak, no mackinaw
nor parka to oppose that chill
the sense of life slipping into madness
Not oblivion, but suffering as Dante
described it and suffered it
So what do you do?
Direct your attention to the break
in the clouds
The fingers of light
The errant warming breeze
The rhythm of walking, the dance
the blessed sanctuary of music
It is there for you, whatever the weather
You can abide, you can co-exist
with the the illness without ceding
control to its cruel pressure
Just now the conductor of this train
stopped to shake my hand
compliment my hat
I make some noise about the
bald head it covers and he
gently admonishes me
“We are handsome,” he says.
“I say to my daughter, ‘Hand
some of that money over to me.”
We laugh, and the conductor/doctor
administers his
delightful medicine.
Gifts, gifts abound.