Status Updates From Picnic, Lightning

Life is rushing by like a mad, swollen river.
One minute roses are opening in the garden
and the next, snow is flying past my window.
Plus the phone is ringing.
The dog is whining at the door.
Rain is beating on the roof.
And as always there is a list of things I have to do
before the night descends, black and silky,
and the dark hours begin to hurtle by,
before the little doors of the body swing shut. . .

Soft yellow-gray light of early morning,
butter and wool,
the two bedroom windows
still beaded and streaked with rain.

The world calm again, routine with traffic,
after its night of convulsions,
when storm drains closed at the throat,
and trees shook in the wind like the hair of dryads.

It is time to float on the waters of the night.
Time to wrap my arms around this book
and press it to my chest, life preserver
in a sea of unremarkable men and women,
anonymous faces on the street,
a hundred different unalphabetized things,
a million forgotten hours.