ARRIVAL: on quitting facebook, part III
The Muses come in silence.
You must sit still and wait.
For a long time, you must sit.
They come in your grief
when the world is cracking open,
when you wake in the moonlight
and your heart is afraid.
They come in your solitude
when all your doors are closed
and even the cats are asleep.
After a long time they come,
and make music from the tears.
ON LEAVING FACEBOOK: part II
I went there
when I was lonely or bored.
There.
As if it were a place
like the back porch of my house
where I sit with the dog
or The Bakery where people I know
go to drink their coffee
or the yarn shop full of color and light.
I liked
things there so casually,
not the way I like
a cat on my lap
or a walk in the field with the dog
or sitting beside my husband on the sofa,
each with a book and a mug of tea.
I could share
things there mindlessly,
not the way I share
worries and joys with Meg
when go for our morning walk
or the way I share with my Real Godmother
Eleanor when we email every morning,
or the way I share recipes and rants about the news
with my old friend Kathy
or the way I share time on the phone
with my sister or my son or my grandson
or lunch with Linda or Megaera or Carol
or pie with Jean and Mel
or energy with the Tai Chi class
or books with the Heretics
or life with the Spring St. Poets
or music with Encanto.
They said it was always free
but not as free as making music
or knitting socks or reading Proust
or weeding the garden.
Not free
like the smell of bread or apples,
like sunset across the meadow
and sunrise through the branches of the gingko tree.
GladErrand 