Waking With Nils
The ancient mariner lies in his bed
not quite Nils yet. He’s still a sea otter
floating on his back looking at the moon –
the remains of an abalone dusting his stomach
content as if he were Nils after a good martini.
The restless ocean billows about him, but he
rides high as a cork thinking his philosphical-otter
thoughts, wondering “How many miles to Babylon?”
Nils wakes to the old debate
Things are themselves, but also shapes –
the flat rectangles of these bedroom walls,
the contoured cylinder of the coffee thermos,
the humped cartography of the white comforter.
So eye flickers between the particular and
the abstract. In Rafael’s painting “At the Academy,”
Plato points to heaven, Aristotle to the earth.
How faithful the things of my room,
the bureau, the chest, my heaped
clothing comfortable as a sleeping cat.
They all come back, every morning,
from where they go at night, back
just before me to make up the room
so it is ready when I arrive –
the long toes at the end of my body,
how elegant they are – even
the one with the blackened nail.
and when I step out to get the morning paper,
the world too is back from its wandering,
ready to do its job. So many things want
to please, whose Beingness pleases–
Dream lost. A forest? Marvelous trees?
No, not remembering, left with unease.
Then over coffee, forgetting I forgot,
Listening to “Java Jive,” sweet and hot,
Back comes the dream – fresh from the pot.
It wasn’t a forest, but a garden plot,
An apple shining, not a single spot,
And an Eve thinking, “Why the hell not?”
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