It's so windy and cold out this November 3rd, Diane.
You see, I lost my country last night,
darling
Now the trees are bending to the rush
I scrambled out of bed and slapped on some warm clothes to upright,
then retrieve
the trash cans that had toppled like Humpty Dumpty over the lawn and across the street
The sun still shining, but it's turned cold today, Diane
The sky disk is still round but its pale light is like a circle of death
It stands inflexible over my lost country, today, Diane
All I could imagine out on the lawn clutching two barrels, one in each hand, was how deeply I'd like to tour a graveyard today.
Walk among the stones, step on the grass
and feel the death around me,
and the life
The polar opposites staring at me
from an infinite store of heart and soul
A longing for the tiny spaces of life was calling, again, Diane.
Those little areas that are so lonely
they beg for your presence
Hearing their call, I rush like this rough wind that pushes me,
like so many empty, inconsequential plastic trash cans.
I grieved for my country, right then.
For the missing river that I easily stepped over yesterday
That flowed with promise and hope so recently
Then I couldn't go back to bed---not after having that dream.
You see my heart had turned too cold and no blanket would be thick enough to warm it.
Then I sat in my trusty little computer chair, the one with the wicked snake
like back to support my lumbar region,
flipped into my many waiting e-mails
There it was, the first I opened: your diatribe on womanhood.
Through the mirth and sarcasm, beyond the anguishand trial
of the feminine:
I realized that is what I need.
The Feminine Mystique.
The clawing, mewling, self-absorbed,
biting, challenged girlhood that carries
all the 'little crosses' of existence
The puberty and training bras, the menstrual mess, the too, too disappointing boyfriends
The motherhood, hysteria and fear
The aging woman soul filled up with sexuality unexpressed and unmet
The worldview of the debutante turned old maid with a wary eye for lumps.
All of the suffering ways you hold and fight
and deal until you are sure you'll burst while menopause strikes you solidly on the forehead and scatters your chemistry around the cosmos.
That's all of what I need, then.
The tears that have women weeping through their lives until perception
becomes a gleaming beacon to the rest of us
When the lithesome smile can turn a wind into a gentler breeze, the sun into a warmer annulus.
And return my country to me.
I don't pretend to understand you, woman; but maybe I do
Pretending I can look deep enough to see you,
search enough to find you, open enough to experience you
All the while knowing you are the inexhaustible mystery.
Yes, that's what I need, Diane.
An inexhaustible mystery that I can wile away
my days pondering
Always more sylphlike than my own lumbering
and slow existence
where boulders form a barricade under my eyes to stop the flow of tears.
Where mystery takes a vacation in my testicles and refuses
to ever return home
Where the loss of a country lies plainly on my forehead
Its damnable, Diane.
Infesting my cerebration;
this forfeited land of my fathers .
Today you made me laugh; not an easy task.
You made me laugh at your viewpoint of womanhood Your humor lifted me away from the chilled sun,
the raping wind,
the trash barrels like caskets in my hands.
I became suddenly giddy, and much less patriotic.
You made me laugh at how
I can pee without getting my socks wet.
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