Idylls of Isolation: NaPoWriMo 2020 - 4. April 22 - April 31

April 22

 

Frequently

I do my best thinking

while underneath the shower’s hot spray;

the torn and crumpled half-finished dreams of the night

are tossed away, and the slate washed clean,

and as water cascades,

new ones form.

 

 

April 23

 

No matter how much soap I use

the lines of worry yet remain

from nights still hazy and diffuse

no matter how much soap I use

my fleeting moments must accuse

the time I let slip down the drain;

no matter how much soap I use

the lines of worry yet remain.

 

 

April 24

 

Fair Celandine, your time is nigh,

for woodlands beckon ‘neath the sky

so blue it makes the soul forget

that snow may yet upon thee lie.

 

This morning in the woods we met,

and though the sun touched you not yet,

I stopped a moment to admire

your cloak spread by the rivulet.

 

Your golden smile my muse inspire

a tuneful hymn upon the lyre

at spring’s return that banished frost

with warmth to blossom in desire.

 

So not a moment must be lost;

my love and I will be enmossed

while hours like deer before us fly

and all our surging strength exhaust.

 

 

April 25

 

Perhaps you know pandemics often flowed,

at least until environmental bounds

like population limits make their rounds,

according to an exponential mode.

 

But did you know that function at its base

Irrationality in all things intersects?

For all depends upon e raised to the x;

And e, as Euler showed the human race,

 

Is transcendental, comparable to π,

beyond the farthest envelopes of space,

where decimals no longer have a place,

and digits trailing up into the sky.

 

Yet mystical as e turns out to be,

upon it turns such great predictive power

we’ll understand, down to the very hour

when all from virus-watching may be free.

 

 

April 26

 

It all began

on the oriental rug,

the big blue one in the living room,

with its octagonal flowers and stylized trees;

as I pushed my toy cars and dump trucks

down its wool boulevards

new worlds bloomed,

make believe

games of permutation

revealed in rich woven multiples,

combinations in colorful geometry,

a rich tapestry of mathematics

to learn from the ground up

on my knees.

 

 

 

April 27

 

Now hear, O children dear

of wild cetacean rude

who scourged seas far and near

and swallowed men for food;

one mariner

when et in haste

did not concur

to be so placed.

 

Indignant sailor he,

for raft and all were slurped;

survival seemed to be

upended and usurped;

so there he sat

within the whale

and wondered at

how he’d prevail.

 

Within that chamber’d gloom,

he hatched an artful plan

amid digestive spume

and instantly began

to jump and dance

with vigor fresh

the more to prance

and arms to thresh.

 

“Now stop that,” whale exclaimed,

his insides all a-hoo,

“My innards will be maimed,

behave as fishes do.”

“Not so, my friend,

but otherwise

my dance extend

till you capsize!”

 

Now spake the sailor sly

and snapped suspenders brown

“I’ll keep on stepping high,

so swim to my hometown!”

the whale bethought

and changed his course

for he was caught

by wit and force.

 

Leviathan then swam

unto that natal shore,

upon the beach he ran

and opened up his gore

out from that throat

the seaman strode

and jammed his boat

therein to goad.

 

The whale could neither spit

nor swallow down that raft

and so he must admit,

new cuisine by this craft;

so whales now dine

on fry so small

or krill so fine;

not man at all.

 

 

 

 

April 28

 

I’ve said yes

to crazy ideas,

like moving the garden for more sun,

and building a boat too large to fit in the shed,

or singing Handel during exams,

yet one thought still remains:

loving you.

 

 

April 29

 

Paradise?

If that place exists, it is no place,

no fixed locality

which pins or painted posts render immobile;

such existence is for neither

chart nor sextant, berth nor platform;

if one would

reach that storied summit,

no firm granite outcrop

might we find from which to view

distant, far-off, fast-moving cloud tops,

but instead discover

exaltation’s scent in still spruce woods at dawn,

its clamor with the robins at dusk,

and its warm hearth

before your heart’s inward flame.

 

 

April 30

 

A proverb last as long as it’s recalled

By those who find it useful, droll or wise,

A truth dressed up in popular disguise

Repeated since one babbled, cried and crawled.

Such elementary lessons left us thralled

To ancient lessons which might ne’er arise

And which our current moments might despise,

Yet nothing modern schooling overhauled.

Upon dilemma’s horns my brain was thrust

and what’s a poor befuddled boy to do?

For I could not those ancient lessons trust

No matter how their words I might construe;

As I knew I was made of different dust

Preferring I might to myself be true.

 

 

April 31

 

I know this date does not exist

in calendar or clock;

and yet I couldn’t scarce resist

this little aftershock;

perhaps you’ll slap me on the wrist

your diaries to mock.