The Real March Madness

Wednesday (Workday), March 29, 2006: It is a beautiful day in New York City—fair skies, 59 degrees, crisp and clean air.

I noticed a fresh splash of bright yellow in the backyard, for Spring has sprung and the daffodils have begun to giggle like a gaggle of teenage girls again. I yearn to see my regal iris germanicas bloom—blossom, flourish, resume their running about, amuck in the yard. They’re quite like rabbits you know, and seed and root and sow their big ball bulbs exponentially each year.

My walk to, and wait at, the bus stop this morning was rife with thoughts that ex-pats like me often have: “California Weather.” Spring and Fall are the saving grace for those of us who have been transplanted to the East Coast from the idyllic hills and valleys of Northern California, for they help us forget the bitter winters and oppressing summers we must otherwise endure.

Although I’m already running late, I’m sure that it is best that I walk from the bus terminal to work today, so that I might, I may, enjoy the refreshing turn of the seasons just a little longer - before I seclude myself inside and succumb to my obligations.

*

When The Trouble Begins

On a day like this
it is hard not to feel
a happy delirium.

Alas, i am late
again.

Thus, and then,
this is when
the trouble begins.

When fine weather
meets whether or not
the boss notices.

When the revelry of Spring
and lackadaisical flings
butt up against
closeted and cubed expectations,
holed-up-in-concrete obligations,
and other compulsory things.

It is no wonder
that so many of us get pulled apart;
that we begin to regress,
that we start to diverge
and develop this compulsive urge
to behave awry and think askew,
until, some of us, ultimately, inevitably,
bid adieu—to sanity.

And it is no wonder
that some of us
rely so heavily on vanity—
to make meaning of why we toil,
if only, so that we have more spoils
than him, her or them.

Yes, this is when
a positively charged day such as this
gets in the way
of progress, and progress
gets in the way
of a positively charged way of life.

This is when
husbands stray away from their wives
and wives finally say goodbye to their husbands
parting over a cumulation of little things,
all the little things, that, like Gulliver
make us feel tied down.

This is when frowns readily replace smiles,
and deadliness defile organic glee;
When hustle and bustle muscle in on spontaneity,

And when,
alas, again,
the trouble begins
(for me).

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l.m