A wish for you...
June 11, 2010
Every now and then I like to share a sorbet on the website. A sorbet is a a thing I do, and have been doing for about eight or nine years. I send out a raw, (sometimes first-draft poem, or riff, or small piece of fiction) to an audience that is spread across the planet. They’re a great audience; a surprising audience. They like to respond. They let me know what works and what doesn’t. It’s really a writing school for me because I get my readers’ insights — I get to hear (sometimes) what they think about a piece of my writing.
You can sign up for these weekly sorbets by going the “sorbet” link above and signing up. It’s private, secure and free. The list is never shared. It’s not sold. It’s just for this one little poem-riff-story delivered to you, every Friday — to help you transition from the work-week to the weekend. Hence the name….sorbet.
Here is this week’s “sorbet.” Enjoy!:
A wish for you
I wish for you,
a small guest house within a stone’s throw of a winery.
A house with good light and fine energy.
A house well-supplied with wine.
With good paper and ink. Maybe a fireplace in the corner for wintery nights.
And in the fall, while the body is still okay with physical labour,
you will work the fields with the Mexicans, picking grapes. You will work hard,
and at night you will drink beer with the other pickers – listen to their stories.
And you will tell some stories too. You will talk about working in a Paris café
and that lighthouse in Scotland where you loved a woman with green eyes
who wore grey dresses and HUNTER rubber boots. Or you will speak about
the woman who believed your cat was a reincarnated Buddhist monk – an
old-soul feline. The night you found her sitting on the kitchen floor
chanting with the cat and the cat seemed to recognize what was going on.
Or the day you walked away from the newspaper
writing job because it was all the same lie.
And there will be someone to love.
Together, you and your lover will manage to find a sustained gratification, of sorts.
You will refuse to define things as they have been defined in the past.
You’ll come up with new un-definitions.
Even simple things like books and cats and dogs.
Books will be long papery stories. You will walk into bookstores and say things like:
“I am looking for a long papery story called Beatrice & Virgil or The Collected Works
of Pat Lowther, or The Imperfectionists.”
“Books, you mean?” the clerk will say.
“No,” you’ll say. “Long papery stories.”
Cats become independent love-givers. Dogs; dumb panting and faithful.
Pencils will be skinny graphite sticks.
And what you have between you, love, or lust, or desire, or resignation to the inevitable,
will only be alluded to with grunts, and moans, and music, and poetry.
You’ll both be confused by its growth. It will deepen and shift over time…and
these shifts will keep some small part of you on edge, always.
But mostly, there will be the writing and gardening,
and having a glass of wine in the afternoon sun,
with whomever you wish, whenever it pleases you.
3 Comments
2. Ray Robinson had this to say: Jun 18, 2010 ~ 11:53 ~ #
I liked your sorbet, “A Wish for You”; that it evoked feelings of warmth and memories and life at its most romantic. I lked it so much that I sent it to a good friend with a commentary of my own. Alas, she never responded, and I realized it was much too personal; that I had tread on ground that I shouldn’t have.
3. thomas had this to say: Jun 18, 2010 ~ 13:12 ~ #
Deb, thanks, woman!
And Ray, I don’t know what to say. Maybe she is swamped with the details of a full and busy life. Maybe she didn’t know how to respond. I’m sorry you didn’t get the response you were looking for.
Thanks for sending this sorbet farther into the world than I imagined.
Best
Thomas