Apropos

My hands hurt from packing. Next Monday movers will take another "small" load to the new house. This week they took eight bookcases and boxed books which I've started to unpack at the new place.

A week from tomorrow will be the "big move." After that we have a week to come back and clean, and take whatever else is left.

Sometimes I wish I was more like my friend Pat who recently sold almost everything she owns before she moves to Florida. Or like my friend Karen whose immaculate, uncluttered house makes me feel calm.

Today, packing my oak filing cabinet I found a folder whose label had fallen off. Inside: "Poems 1990," a neat, three-page, hand-written list and the originals. I got a kick out of the first one which speaks to me almost twenty-three years later.

NEW YEAR'S DAY

The first day of the year

the first day of the new decade

the first time I feel good

since I got back from Reno.

I dream about Liza

who looks like Divyananda

ruddy and spiritual like

a wild northern animal

genuinely heartened

by snow.

Today in Venice, with everything

the color of sand

including a dubious vagrant

in worn-out clothes

everything is ornamental

with the look of something

soon to be thrown away.

I want permanence.

I'd like to stir my tea

with this same spoon

fifty years from now.

I want something that lasts.

And since it isn't you

I'll find it in possessions

small enough to be carried

wherever I go.

I still have that spoon, and possessions too heavy to carry alone. Plus a dog, two cats and a husband. The life I always wanted. I know of course nothing is permanent.  Which makes me love them all the more.