Next in the Series of Poems about the Fall of 2005

September 30, 2005
Just as astonishing as how vague and blurry the world seems when I’m ill is

How sharp and crisp and pungent
it gets when I return to health

Met Bill at the ferry building for dinner last night
in the mood to be pleased
to sit outside behind the new Mexican place
in the end-of-day warmth
eat yummy tacos and watch the violet water
there was even an accordionist playing somewhere
though I have a hard time believing in accordionists
at moments like that
(or like the time we were eating ice cream on a bridge in Paris)

Inside
there were bright orange zinnias and pumpkins
jars of jammy things
glasses of dark red wine
mushrooms growing under glass
to be seen

And then a wonderful thing happened
Bill decided to play hooky from his night class
We rode the cable car home together
when I’d expected to ride it alone
through the luscious indian-summer sideways-slanting sunlight
the color of a new penny
every year it comes back
making everything and everyone golden and beautiful
the impersonal high-rises and the grubby streets and the sort of sad little trees
but most especially stone buildings and human flesh
looked luminous
lit from within
god it was lovely
The air with that warm evening quality
we get maybe half a dozen nights a year
if that
and all the accrued sickness and sadness and stress just lifting off us
in waves

image source is here