A Color of the Sky
by Tony Hoagland
Windy today and I feel less than brilliant,
driving over the hills from work.
There are the dark parts on the road
when you pass through clumps of wood
and the bright spots where you have a view of the ocean,
but that doesn’t make the road an allegory.
I should call Marie and apologize
for being so boring at dinner last night,
but can I really promise not to be that way again?
And anyway, I’d rather watch the trees, tossing
in what certainly looks like sexual arousal.
Otherwise it’s spring, and everything looks frail;
the sky is baby blue, and the just-unfurling leaves
are full of infant chlorophyll,
the very tint of inexperience.
Last summer’s song is making a comeback on the radio,
and on the highway overpass,
the only metaphysical vandal in America has written
MEMORY LOVES TIME
in big black spraypaint letters,
which makes us wonder if Time loves Memory back.
Last night I dreamed of X again.
She’s like a stain on my subconscious sheets.
Years ago she penetrated me
but though I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed,
I never got her out,
but now I’m glad.
What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle.
What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel.
What I thought was an injustice
turned out to be a color of the sky.
Outside the youth center, between the liquor store
and the police station,
a little dogwood tree is losing its mind;
overflowing with blossomfoam,
like a sudsy mug of beer;
like a bride ripping off her clothes,
dropping snow white petals to the ground in clouds,
so Nature’s wastefulness seems quietly obscene.
It’s been doing that all week:
making beauty,
and throwing it away,
and making more.
Now I'm definitely not a poetry kind of guy, but somehow this one caught my attention last week. I'm a junkie with my new iPhone and have recently been checking out all kinds of podcasts. This poem was on one of them. The first part of the podcast sounded like some over articulate hippy reading the book of Leviticus from the Bible. I don't think I heard a word he said. I began to pay attention about the time he started reading the poem. The part about the trees looking like sexual arousal definitely caught my attention.
The part that really drew me in was the cornerstone of the poem, the verse about "A color of the sky". Funny part is for some reason I thought more about how that line related to other people. From my best female friend to someone I don't know that well but her away messages on IM seemed all to familiar.
Then tonight as I was settling into bed, listening to some mp3's and contemplating writing one of the many blogs I have been meaning to write since my birthday, it hit me. My mp3's were playing on shuffle and as one came on it took me back to a different TIME. As I was listening to the opening of the song, before the lyrics started, I was thinking that this would be a good song to put up for a blog. The lyrics started and I became confused, wondering if maybe I had already posted this particular song as a blog. After a few minutes of searching back through my blog I realized that indeed I had posted it almost a year and a half ago. Maybe that was my middle.
Its funny how life plays out. How the mistakes you make so long ago can come back to either haunt you or help you grow. How cyclical life can be. I have had so much on my mind the last 2 months, I just haven't gotten around to putting my thoughts up here. I posted 2 blogs right before my birthday (I'm starting to feel my age), and haven't really had the time since to get all my jumble of thoughts together enough to put up here. Its going to be a different year with lots of new challenges for all of us. I feel that its going to be a good year though, I at least plan on making the best of whatever comes along.
But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only,
