lassitude

Today's word is

lassitude

A good word, but dangerous on grey days, the same way as soporific...  zzz zz zzzz

*****
Thursday, December 1, 2005
Well, I did actually rouse myself from lassitude to write the following, but then I sank back into it, hence the late posting.  What can I say?  I was inspired -- both ways.

Another boring story of failure
with a twist:

A green hand
stretches from the base
of a tree I thought
I'd killed,
snatching me from
lassitude
with no idea
what to do about it.

Poor schefflera --
umbrella tree --
I have hardly sheltered you.
I put you out in the summer
to partake of the humidity,
your species' birthright
that you only knew before
in the greenhouse
where you were born.

Then frost came,
just for a night
at a time, at first,
but strong enough
and too fast,
so fast that I forgot
to think of you,
so fast that I
didn't notice it
and failed to haul you
in your indigo-glazed pot
heavy with a whole summer's rain
back indoors to safety
before you could be hurt.

The only umbrella
you resemble now
is the kind that
gets blown out
in successive nor'easters
'til nothing's left of it
but sticks and rags.

There are only so many of
these kinds of failures
that one person
can bear to accept
in one lifetime,
and every small one after
gets bigger and harder
the later it comes.

I had to hope
I hadn't killed you,
even though it was clear
that I had.

I did haul you in --
too late, so late --
in your rain-heavy indigo pot,
and gave you a sunny window
next to the heater.
You shriveled and blackened
more, until today.

Today, at the base
of one dessicating stalk,
a small green arm
topped by a fist of green leaves
no bigger than seeds
reaches up out of
a bad death and demands
life.

Comments

[moose]

Ah, I'd missed this one. I hate it when my green thumb (such as it is) turns brown. I loved the "fist" at the end.

[Sara]

Thanks, Moose. I totally suck at houseplants. I garden reasonably well, but indoor plants challenge me. It's kind of unnatural having them here. It would be different (I fantasize) if I had a conservatory for them to live in year 'round. Maybe it would just be more expensive.