One Old Verb in the Lock Turning

How's that for a title? It's W.S. Merwin's phrase, not mine, but at least I had the sense to have my coffee on the deck this morning with The Shadow of Sirius as my companion. Now and then I looked up to watch the bees and the hummingbirds darting about the cape honeysuckle shrub that has begun to reach above the wall, its orange flowers apparently quite a draw.

Summer is lingering here, oblivious to the fury of stormy elsewheres, and I was planning to embark upon a head-clearing solo walk in the backcountry, but it's awfully hot and I find I'm not as ambitious as I thought I'd be. I'm in a kind of malaise, anyway, and have been for awhile. We are all in knots as the election approaches. And post-Sandy reports from back East (including my old Long Island stomping grounds) are disturbing on so many levels. And as always, I'm trying to figure out my life, whatever that means, and I can't seem to locate the key.

Still, I strive for optimism. Election-wise, my heart refuses to believe that the majority of the American electorate will go for an elitist shape-shifter over President Obama. Okay, Obama doesn't walk on water. He's made a few missteps and hasn't always lived up to everyone's most shining hopes, but he's a leader of reason and integrity functioning in a real and complex world, and his accomplishments are extraordinary: in particular, an economy inching its way toward recovery, much-needed health care reform, prudent foreign policy. And all this despite his having inherited an unprecedented mess upon coming into office and then relentless obstructionism from the Republicans every step of the way. So yes, I feel certain we're on the right course with Obama. Hopefully by Wednesday morning we'll breathe easier.

And at this point, to paraphrase my late friend Bob Isaacson, we can probably be at peace knowing that everything that could have been said has been so nearly said. But since this blog is my own little platform, I can't resist posting just one example of the many articulate articles I've read on why we should stick with the President. This one, On Myths and Millionaires, is by one of Romney's own former partners at Bain.

Speaking of optimism, I also harbor hope that among Sandy's aftermaths will be a new awareness of climate change, more enlightened environmental policies, a rebuilding of old infrastructure in sounder ways, even a greater sense of the importance of community. I know...easy words, maybe naive. As John Lennon sang, "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one..." I know I'm not. In fact, I think a few others are hovering right here.

Which brings me back to the morning, watching hummingbirds, reading Merwin. Sustenance. Time to quote another poet, William Carlos Williams: "It's difficult to get the news in poems, but men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there."

So in this time of hand-wringing, clenched guts, tears, and dismay, I am thinking of myself as an old slow verb, clumsily dragging around, not even knowing what lock I am meant to open. But here in this book, Merwin speaks of "...an unchanged astonishment/that has never been tamed or named/nor held in the hand/nor ever fully seen/but it is still the same/a vision before news a gift/of flight in dream/of clear depths where I glimpse/far out of reach the lucent days/from which now I am made"

And it's like a long drink of cool fresh water, and I am utterly refreshed, remembering something I'd nearly forgotten.