Laundry

She likes clean laundry,

so twice a week, thrice even,

she empties the hamper, sorts by whites

and lights and colors and spends

the better part of the day

washing and hanging and folding

and sorting into hers and mine

and whoever else’s clothes appeared unwashed

and in need of cleaning, children’s and grandchildren’s

and house guests’, or any other unclaimed clothes appearing.

Winters here stymie her as the hanging,

her preference, is substituted by the dry heat

of tumbled clothes, round and round and clunking,

which she tolerates because she must, the clotheslines

removed before the skies turn to snow the yard

draped with ropes, haphazardly strung between trees

and barn and telephone poles, too cold and deep

to trudge out and clip wet clothes with frozen fingers.

She sighs at the option, not the cold or snow,

but the missing scent of wind and sunshine, summer

laundry’s residue left in drying, fresher still

than tumbled heat masked with Bounce or Downy,

weak substitutes for freshness, just not the same.

This year, fast approaching the closing of the camp

and the taking down of lines, she claims an early victory,

adding one more step to the close-up checklist:

stringing lines for hanging clothes on the front porch.

It’s unheated, but it faces the lake and is lined with windows

and the southern sun, relatively warm on a winter’s day,

warm enough to trap the sunshine, enough to dry clothes

hung there, freezing and thawing even as they dry

over time, more time, to be carried back to the house

across the yard, laid out for final thawing and warming,

then folded to trap the smell and feel of clothes

more loosely hung in summer sunshine, spring and fall.

Me? The dryer is fine, clothes warm to the touch

and soft, Bounced or Downy’d, an acceptable substitute.

But I don’t do the laundry; it’s her self-chosen job

exchanged for cleaning the bathroom, my job, done less often.

It’s a fair trade, so I’ll do my part and pick up

my clothes and put them in the hamper, even string now

the lines from east to west on the porch for winter

sunshine, completing this newly added step. I’ll carry

a basket of wet clothes across the yard, dressed

against the cold in a heavy coat and hat and mittens,

winter boots.  Perhaps it’s some husbandly duty,

“all other duties as assigned,” or perhaps it’s to avoid

the alternative, not heat tumbled clothes, but a new step

added to my own checklist, washing my own clothes,

which I can do, and have done, out of necessity,

but I never liked doing it, would prefer not to do,

why I married her, I joke, so when the question

is asked, “do you think we could ... ?”,

a rhetorical question, no answer is required.

Autumn's Month, October

September rolls to an end,

gaining momentum as the days fly by,

the days shortening and the nights made longer.

Cold evening breezes shake the trees outside my window;

the oak and maple leaves hold tight to each other

and cry out in dry voices, rattling, keeping me awake

as I lie here, warm under a quilt, newly added

in the dropping temperatures of nighttime falling,

shutting off the warmth of daylight, September hastening

down toward slow October, Autumn’s month, a time to remember: 
clear dark skies and morning chills, frost covering the grass,

and the scrapings of cast off leaves rattling across the lawn

to gather along the fence, a time of gathering up,

setting aside for the winter months ahead.

And listening to September rolling to an end

while Autumn’s month sneaks slowly in, gathering up,

I think of the years passing, other autumns, long ago,

and a hazy smoke rising gray against the waning green

of summer turning orange and rust and red and brown,

a hazy smoke lingering acrid, drifting upward  

from burning leaves, smoldering piles watched carefully

by old men propped up, leaning themselves on old rakes,

watching and remembering, too, drifting off perhaps

with the smoke, hazy and acrid in their recollections,

a gray smoke smoldering the memories of September

rolling to an end, shortened days and nights made longer,

the dry leaves calling to remind me, keeping me awake,

as September rolls to an end into Autumn’s month, October.

A Scent of Autumn

Besides the pumpkin spice that pervades this change

of seasons, the leaves are starting to turn;

the greens of summer dull to yellow and brown

and fall, ones and twos letting go from the trees

to announce themselves where they lie stark

against the grass wet now by the morning’s dew,

a cooler night manifesting itself. And rising late

with the sun, reluctant to leave the warmth of my bed,

I pile yesterday’s news and kindling, logs that burn easily, 

into the stove, and set them ablaze, breathing deep

the acrid smell of smoke carried aloft,

up the chimney and away, a gray cloud billowing.

This is an autumn scent here in the woods where I live

and the bitter essence of the season changing,

summer into fall, and with it, ourselves, turning inward,

remembering our own seasons, where we are, and why.

All the Poetry you'll ever Need

If you can capture the way things are, that’s all the poetry you’ll ever need (Natalie Goldberg), all the poetry that is necessary to sustain us, capturing life the way it truly is meant to be lived and holding it close to us. For what could be more beautiful than to look beyond the dross of life, beyond the covers we place over our lives so as not to spoil ourselves, stripping all that away and discovering what we’ve hidden there, or perhaps feared to see, and seeing it now in its simplicity, hearing its voice in verse, and feeling its blood coursing through us, finding the beauty of being alive and knowing that beauty is us.

Wine tastes best alone

Wine tastes best alone

      on a quiet evening, remembering;

            warmed by the rays of a setting sun,

                  the sounds of dusk turning to night

                        resonate in a rich, red bouquet.