umbrella sky

November 22, 2006 | Filed Under ordinary 

today ends with a shot of gold, orange, greenish, through the black and gray of the day. we swing at the park crazy, cold, wet, heads back to watch the clouds turned upside down, prairie, ocean, gray balls of cloud frozen, novembered, as we tip nearly dangerous head first towards the mountain. addictive, i can’t stop swinging. henry bickers with another child, jude asks for a swing himself. i leap from the swing because no one is watching. intervention, assistance. sometimes i remember having no responsibilities. i got more done, but i don’t remember what it was that i was doing. this day i remember pushing into long moons of swing a lopsidedly seated sweatered boy with whisp gold hair while he shrieked and swallowed glee.

the house is ours, or we’ve promised to make it so. tonight the dishwasher (blessed girl am i at last!) chugs loudly (old, gold mama who doesn’t mind dishpan hands, belly) and the boys sleep in the dark. i sit in the dark at a desk that is not an old piano, in fact, that used to be the kitchen table. clayton bought this table for me years ago at a yard sale. for some reason i never had a job and my brothers always bought things for me. movie tickets, cola, antique tables painted a sloppy tapioca. ernie painted the thing green and we used it for the computer through grad school. my mother-in-law spent a week stripping the green, the tap-tap-tapioca (everybody), turning the thing a dark streaking brown. the last truckload of boxes will be here from sam’s garage in minutes, seconds. ernie and ben and i will walk without talking to and from the truck, the feel of carboard slipping on our hands. too many books, have we. books and toys. i thought i’d gotten rid of everything.

i surround myself with paper, cords, books without shelves, a twice dotted domino, a monster truck, the yellow bird that sings ceramic songs. disorganized we are. it feels good to make clutter.

guess who sighs her lullabies through nights that never end?

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