A Meeting with the Devil

My to-do list is disgustingly large. The undone chores range from the imminent like bill-paying (the gas and electric people probably think I have died) to the esoteric, such as getting my mitts on a novel by this year’s Nobel Prize winner in literature, Mario Vargas Llosa, of whom I have shockingly never heard despite his being regarded for decades as “one of the world’s greatest and most adventurous writers,” according to my newspaper. I’m a Philistine.

So anyway, the to-do list is long. If I don’t dust pretty soon, all my little tchotchkes will turn into fossils. I still haven’t put away the Christmas stocking holders I bought on sale last December (I may as well leave them up now since it’s nearly Christmas anyway). And I think I’m growing enough penicillin in the far reaches of the refrigerator to inoculate most of the Third World.

That makes me think of Monkey Man’s Sunday 160 challenge, which requires you to write something of great literary value using only 160 characters and spaces. Here’s my effort, an acrostic poem:

Dust adorns your set of tchotchkes
United by its ridiculous paucity of value
Someday your grandchildren will not be
Thrilled to inherit its archaeological zilch.

But back to what I was doing with my time yesterday. Was I marking off anything on my to-do list? Nooo. I was outside on the patio grooming the cooperative Cecile Brunner rose that I’d been so beastly with earlier this week. That put me in such a Zen state that I moved on to the 20-foot-long Banks rose hedge that lines the rest of the patio fencing. I decided to untangle all three interwoven bushes, thin out the dead stuff, and then re-weave the canes into a nice lacy network of Banks roses. (*** See note below.)

Dear hubby came outside and asked, “Do you realize you’re pruning shrubbery at 10 o’clock at night?” No, I said, I had no idea it was that late. So I put down the pruning shears and went to our bedroom to scrub my hands. There, I realized that cleaning the double-sink vanity was on my to-do list, so I started scrubbing the sinks. Dear hubby, who was by then climbing into bed, said, “Why are you cleaning house at 10 o’clock at night?”

I thought, “He’s really hung up on that 10 o’clock at night business.” What I said was “I’m not cleaning house. I’m just doing a quick wipe-down here. I’ll be done in a flash” and I went on scrubbing. No time like the present, and all that. When I got out the water bottle and the rag to clean the mirrors, dear hubby made a groaning sound and stated the obvious: “Now you’re cleaning the mirrors!” I wiped much faster and said, “Look. See? I’m just about done.”

Dear hubby’s good-night ritual was a little grumpy last night. But I felt wonderful anyway. I got to scratch an item off my to-do list, and also scratch off another big chore once I added “Prune the Banks rose” to the list. That’s how to-do lists work: If you inadvertently do something that was not on the list to begin with, you add it to the list just so you can cross it off.

Also on my list was a poem for this week’s Poetry Bus, the Totalfeckineejit’s adventure in global poetry. He got Argent to drive this week because he’s busy basking in the glory of his debut volume of the Poetry Bus literary journal. It’s full of magnificent poetry by poets all over the world, and it’s practically free compared to what the Big Guns cost. Follow the link above to buy a copy of the premier issue for a paltry 6 pounds, a real steal since it's sure to become a collector’s item worth millions. At the same time you get to do your small bit to support the world’s grass-roots poetry culture.

Argent, meanwhile, instructs poets to tackle the topic of meetings if they want to hop aboard for this week’s world tour. Check out the bus riders at Argent’s Delusions of Adequacy blog. I met the challenge with a poem about meeting the dark side of the force.

Dancing with the Devil

The devil comes to me as I walk down a rocky trail
beside a small stream the color of sweet brown tea
in a broad avenue of sycamores towering high overhead
with their gray skin peeling away from their white flesh
and their russet leaves fluttering down like butterflies,
where the air smells of wood and stone and decay.

He appears to me with a sound like birdsong
and immediately my feet stop in wonder against my will
for I know the devil to be the devil, not a sweet sound,
yet I halt and listen. He takes shape, the form of a man
out for a country walk, a fellow seeker of the quiet
earth, and he hails me with a gentle call, naming me.

I know the devil knows my name but his voice is soft
as fleece against my ears, and against my will I turn
and wait for him to catch me on the trail, this prince
of darkness whose countenance is friendly, so damn glad
to see me in this solitary place: Why here? I wonder
that he should accost me in broad daylight, in serenity.

I know him and know he bodes me ill but momentarily
my arm rises with a will of its own to greet him
like an old friend happily found on the trail I walk.
My hand reaches out to him against my will to clasp
his hand reaching out to me, and it is powerfully strong,
his grasp, warm and muscular, with great endearment.

He draws me in against my will with one arm out
to encircle me as if we are equally welcoming,
equally glad to meet one another on this path,
which has turned suddenly cold, bitterly cold and
forbiddingly silent, and the only warmth is in his arms
one dropping to my waist and one grasping my hand.

We begin slowly with unconscious melody to dance
delicately there on the trail surrounded by sycamores
reaching to heaven and boulders buried in earth’s depths.
We dance, the devil and I, against my will, in a lazy
little box step, nothing fancy but intriguingly warm
as icicles grow crystalline on sycamore twigs.

We dance although I know he bodes me ill
and against my will I like it. I melt into his arms
with one hand on his shoulder and one hand clasped
in his, and his soft endearing voice whispers Why not?
as we dance. The leaves crackle in the cold
and the sound of ice swallows my scream.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
(***Sunday morning: I checked out my handiwork with the Banks rose hedge after last night's pruning interruptus. The "nice lacy network" of interwoven rose canes that I envisioned in the dark looks in fact like a bomb exploded in the hedge, spewing chaotic branches everywhere. My to-do list just got a little longer.)