Some Stuff

Because I commuted a while ago going to my ortho in anticipation of the removal of my braces, which had been postponed till the next month, and because I waddled through mud and fought with Mama and the traffic unforgivable

I chose to stay graceful.

*

Some Trees
John Ashbery

These are amazing: each
Joining a neighbor, as though speech
Were a still performance.
Arranging by chance

To meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I
Are suddenly what the trees try

To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain.

And glad not to have invented
Some comeliness, we are surrounded:
A silence already filled with noises,
A canvas on which emerges

A chorus of smiles, a winter morning.
Place in a puzzling light, and moving,
Our days put on such reticence
These accents seem their own defense.

*

My umbrella, my only defense was broken.