Questions

June 19, 2009

Dear Blog,

I’m so sorry for neglecting you, but, you see, we are moving (Ted and I) to a new home– a real house with a yard and a dishwasher and a garage! So I promise I’ll spend more time with you as soon as we get everything settled there (this weekend).

In the meantime, here’s a lovely poem by Stephen Dunn.

Questions by Stephen Dunn

If on a summer afternoon a man should find himself in love with only one woman in a sea of women, all the others mere half-naked swimmers and floaters, and if that one woman therefore is clad in radiance while the mere others are burdened by their bikinis, then what does he do with a world suddenly so small, the once unbiased sun shining solely on her? And if that afternoon turns dark, fat clouds like critics dampening the already wet sea, does the man run– he normally would–for cover, or does he dive deeper in, get so wet he is beyond wetness in all underworld utterly hers? And when he comes up for air, as he must, when he dries off and dresses up, as he must, how will the pedestrian streets feel?

What will the street lamps illuminate? How exactly will he hold her so that everyone can see she doesn’t belong to him, and he won’t let go?

“Questions” by Stephen Dunn, from Local Visitations. (c) W.W. Norton & company, 2003. Reprinted with permission (from the website The Writer’s Almanac).

PS–It’s Salmon Rushdie’s Birthday today–happy bday!