Conspicuous in My Absence

So far today, I've had four e-mails checking to see if I'm alive.

I am. Apparently it upset the natural order of things when I did not post last night, a fact of which I was unaware. People were worried that I was roadkill somewhere because I didn't blog.

I don't want to disappoint anyone, but I didn't go out last night. It was a beautiful evening and I had a new book of poetry given to me for my birthday so I took it to my back porch to read.

Honestly, the only thing that could have made it better would have been if the beagle had been at my feet.

The book "Hello Sunshine" is by singer/songwriter Ryan Adams, a man whose music I greatly enjoy.

I hadn't read his first book of poems "Infinity Blues" but I knew they were written when he was still very much a miserable person using drugs and completely cynical about life.

"Hello Sunshine" was written after he fell in love (and married) and got clean; it's like reading the journal of a man discovering love and life for the first time.

To a hopeless romantic like me, it was best kind of porch read; once the sun began setting, I turned on the light so I could stay outside and finish the book. The scent of the gardenia bush wafting up from under my balcony only added to the mood.

we pass through these days like sunlight
through gauzy wet sheets
damp
and yellow in the backyard
riddled with hopeful light
and
my world is nothing but day
and
it was the silence stirring in the room
that sent
my dream
back
to me
and
back to you
or
back to us
always 
back to us


I'll do my best not to mess with the natural order again. But sometimes all I need is poetry read from a rocking chair in the waning light and, really, how interesting a post does that make?

I rest my case.