Costco! Listerine Discount Coupon! Turkey! No Turkey! Pumpkin Pie! No Pumpkin Pie! Glendale for two days? No Glendale for two days! Son for Christmas! NOT! Pumpkin Pie! No Pumpkin Pie! Whole Foods Pumpkin Pie! No, Pamplemousse Pumpkin-spiced Sponge Cake! No, Pamplemousse Caramel Streusel Apple Tart! Tree: real or fake? $200 for fake? That’s it: No tree!
Calls: Margarita! Irene in L.A.! Venice! March! Floods! Credit Card! Venice! No, Bacolod! But, no handguns! Girl, the black eye! Remember the black eye? Somnambulism! Insomnia! Black Eye! Bacolod! Champagne! Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider! Honeybaked Ham! Marylee! Turkey Day! Merwin’s Poem About Airports! Ingrid Wendt! Venice! Philadelphia! Margarita again!
Lawyer! No, no lawyer! Enough with lawyers! Think: Family! Think: Good Thoughts! No Lawyer means more money! More money in the bank! More money for Venice in 2013! And more money for pumpkin pie! And greeting cards!
And again, questions! So many questions!
- Why is there a big black umbrella in the trunk of self’s car? Who put it there, and when?
- Whose brass key is that in the trunk, nestled beneath the big, black umbrella? To what drawer or safe does this key belong?
- And why is Bella The Ancient One still content to live, when we give her no particular care, other than to wipe up her pee and administer twice a day Glucosamine and pain medication?
Nevertheless
- , isn’t it ungrateful (nay, even
un-Amerian
- to say that, when Bella has provided our family with so many years of unstinting and unquestioning devotion?
W. S. Merwin’s poem in the October 15, 2012 New Yorker (Self is mindful of the fact that the trunk of her car is still full of totally unnecessary purchases from Costco, all waiting to be off-loaded as soon as self finishes this post, but anyhoo) is such a hoot Here’s the first half!
Neither Here Nor There
An airport is nowhere
which is not something
generally noticedyet some unnamed person in the past
deliberately planned it
to be thereand you have spent time there
again
and are spending time there again
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Kanlaon 
2 responses to “Stream-of-Consciousness, Monday Before Thanksgiving (2012)”
I hate airports but love Merwin and his poetry.
Kyi
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Kyi,
This is the poem that I will carry with me, wherever I go, to read in the waiting area of whatever flight I am about to embark on, in the future. Forever and ever.
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