INVITATION
By Gloria Monaghan
Invitation
The road is waiting for you to walk
into the open air
into the slightly grey day
with the sliver of sun just over the clouds
orange and unpredictable
we are in God’s way
each of us golden
and waiting
where does it come from
this amazing day with the low clouds
the fallen small oval yellow leaves
wet on the path to your home
the invitation is waiting for you to come out
and explore the early frost on the green grass
encompassing a deeper green than even you
never thought of
something fell away
and it is time now for you to leave your desk.
Provincetown
The light in Provincetown is fading. It is very grey.
My favorite color that moves from light to shallow darkness.
You have shown me lightness in fallow, you have shown me humility.
At the restaurant, with barely perceptual move you went to the back of the line.
You showed me grace.
The light darkens and I like it better.
You are not afraid, of verb tense, or tragedy.
You read mystics, children, and lunatics.
You have your palm read and you read others. It is all the same this reading.
But what astonishes me more than any of these things is your steady and careful walk to the boat in the pouring rain,
your thin coat and careful paper fingers, your delicate blue eyes.
You walk on the plank to the fast ferry, only it is a slow walk and the rain is falling all around you.
And you persist like a plover, like a willful bird ready for the morning.
Practical, bewitching and exquisite.
Meditation One
“Let us suppose, then, that we are dreaming, and that all these particulars–namely, the opening of the eyes, the motion of the head, the forth- putting of the hands–are merely illusions; and even that we really possess neither an entire body nor hands such as we see”.
Descartes
I am letting sadness seep in
to the corners of my brittle body.
I wake to adolescent children talking
and fall in the air.
A praying mantis came into the living room
and stared at my daughter and myself
huge soft eyes; so kind
what to do about that?
It was teaching me about stillness.
It was a hard lesson.
I can’t let go of summer.
Meditation Two
I lost a thread of myself
in a Bill Evans song-
no matter the title
you get the picture.
Slow unraveling of smoke
decimated
like the smattering cigar ash.
When someone holds your hand,
try and remember it,
not like the rain,
try to remember how easy and casual the whole thing was.
Don’t assume it will happen again,
and just shrug off the connection
feel the lines of the person’s hand
the slow energy of their hair
between the nape of the neck and the collar bone
the small isolated brown dot just below the hairline
take in where they place their hands
the weight of the hand on your hip.
Don’t try and imagine how your hands feel on them
notice where the hair from the scalp ends
and the neck recedes into slow movement
like a song
that leaves you transparent and lost
the road forgotten
the flowers you saw only yesterday, now are brown
there is still that feeling.
About the Author:
Gloria Monaghan is a Professor of Humanities at Wentworth Institute in Boston. She is a published author and poet. She has two books of poetry, Flawed (Finishing Line Press, 2011) and The Garden (Flutter Press 2015). She has published in Blue Max Review, Slope, Adelaide, Aurorean, and 2River among others. She currently live south of Boston.