While Busy Making Other Plans …

My wife asked me to repeat what I had said,

A common occurrence she blames on muddled speech

Although I suspect that she doesn’t hear things clearly,

Some impediment in the sensory apparatus

Gone undetected by tests at the audiologist’s office.

If I have to ask again, she said, I’m going to kill you.

But how would she do it? I’ve watched enough TV

To know that it isn’t easy to commit a murder

Without leaving evidence of your culpability.

DNA on fibers, drops of sweat, fingerprints, blood.

There’s no gun in our house, and even if there was

I doubt that she’d use it. It wouldn’t be her style.

The knives are all dull, but she could

Smother me as I slept and say that my heart,

Which beats from time to time with imperfect rhythm

Had given up, although I think that the forensics people

Would discover the signs of foul play.

She could join me on a mountain hike

And give me a push me when I stood close to an edge,

But what if I survived, a hopeless invalid,

Or what if no opportunity presented itself?

She could poison me—the Russians know how!

But where would she get that fatal drop of whatever,

And how would she keep the fact of it from coming to light?

No, better to stay in the realm of fantasy,

To let the warning linger in air of our relations,

Which can be kept happily intact through the simple

Act of speaking in a strong, clear voice.

I’ll try, but if she wants to have the knives sharpened,

I’ll make sure to stay on my guard.

 

 © Dennis Hathaway

 

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The famous rock and roller sang,

You can’t always get what you want,

But do you really know what you want

Before you know what you can have?

 

A friend said, if you keep pointing fingers

You’ll eventually point at yourself.

Is he a savant, a philosopher disguised

As an ordinary man, a man whose

Ordinary mind turns up a nugget

Of truth, or is he a fraud, exciting

The gullible with pronouncements

So silken they’re sure to have once

Been sow’s ears.

 

You can get what you want

If you want nothing, or only a little.

A practical policy, though unpatriotic.

 

Didn’t somebody say, I want it all.

Is that person to be admired? Or pitied?

We’re cajoled into buying things we

Never imagined wanting, things we

Don’t need, things that will make our

Lives more difficult, although we won’t know it.

 

There’s the rub. What we want is knowledge,

The knowing that pricelessness is a concept

Of ridicule in the circles that may come near,

But will never open to let us step inside

And see everything we’ve always imagined

We wanted, everything that will allow us

To eagerly peer at reflections of ourselves,

To smile and say, And this is all.

 

 © Dennis Hathaway

 

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Empty spaces to be filled,

Shelf with books and art objects,

Drawer with socks and underwear,

Closet with shirts and pants,

Car trunk with shopping bags,

First aid kit, hiking gear.

 

But what of the hollow spaces

In the mind where facts echo,

Where opinions rattle like loose bearings,

And the light is so dim one has to grope

To find the way to the door.

 

 © Dennis Hathaway

 

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Standing at the window,

Watching the wind in the trees,

Overcome with sadness and remorse

For all that is gone and will never be.

A parent, a friend, an old car,

Money scattered like the brittle leaves

That flutter away in a sudden gust,

Then fall in a just as sudden calm.

They will skitter across the sidewalk

And into the boisterous street

Where a car speeds in one direction,

And a car going even faster

Speeds in the other. To where?

And why such urgency,

When the brittle crunch beneath the tires

Will fade with the swelling warmth,

And buds will appear on the branches,

And when no one is watching,

Unfurl into leaves, dark or bright,

Slender or broad, ready to dance

In a freshly awakened breeze.

 

 © Dennis Hathaway

 

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There are heroes unknown to those

Who worship the celebrities smiling

Or frowning, as the case may be,

At the supermarket checkout counters,

On TV talk programs, on billboards

That implore us to buy a product,

See a movie, take a trip to an exotic place,

Somewhere we can forget what we are

In the bigger scheme of things.

 

The woman who brings the mail,

In the heat, the cold, the rain, the Santa Ana

Winds that carry the desert’s dessicated breath

All the way to the inexorably rising sea,

Knowing that her motley bestowal

Will go, almost immediately, to the reclycling bin.

And yet she always smiles, says Hello,

How’re you doing? I knew her name once,

But now it’s gone, buried with other facts

In a hidden corner of the brain that rusts,

Not of disuse or neglect, but from an oversupply

Of information, most of it worthless,

Mistakenly allowed to collect in the belief

That it mattered. That vast knowledge would

Be the mark of heroism, when in fact that elusive

State of being arises not from anything grandiose,

But small, diligent, infinitely repeated acts

Of good will. Like smiling and saying Hello

When trudging the same drab street every day,

Bringing the unwanted mail.

 

 © Dennis Hathaway

 

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