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“The worlds whole sap is sunke:
The generall balme th'hydroptique earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the beds-feet life is shrunke,
Dead and enterr'd, yet all these seeme to laugh,
Compared with mee, who am their Epitaph.”
A Nocturnall Upon St. Lucie's Day, Being the Shortest Day
John Donne
Here in the bowel of winter
(I always loved those lines from Donne, if not the time of year)
I am speed reading my life, asleep, in dreams,
Feature length with terror and amusement in equal parts—
I sit with my mother in perfect company
Admiring her profile
And the full, dark Lytton Strachey-like beard
That she has decided to cultivate;
I note how well it suits her.
Driving in planes
That balk at becoming air borne—
And life drifts back in briefly during part of a day
With a book,
Or an animal,
Or Vladimir and Estragon, still waiting, this time on TV.
But opposite my desk they are
Bricking up a window;
A terrible omen in the urban lexicon,
And I wonder if some part of me has been
Diligently and thoroughly closed,
A bulb disappearing permanently,
Sealed in brick and hardening mortar
The smell of damp cement
That is not nature,
That is not entirely synthetic—
A token of senses
Once bulging through
Each window
Every crevice.