Garbage Night - The Empresses' New Clothes - Poem: My Five Stages of Grief for the White Fence

Nicole and Baby Grace. Nicole wrote on her Facebook page that Grace now weighs over 9 pounds. Believe it or not, when you hold her, she feels very heavy. At our New Directions meeting last nite, Fontaine said, "How's the baby?"

"Fine," I said.

"How much does she weigh," she asked.

"How come nobody asks ME how much I weigh," I said.

"It's all about the baby," said Fontaine, who ran the Family Group last nite. Neither she nor I are in the family way.

Leave it to me to put up an unflattering photo of me clothes-shopping at Impact Thrift. I went on a non-manic buying spree for my Fall Wardrobe. Luckily, if you're an old lady you get 25% off. My entire bill, which included a Susi garlic press for $2, a new griddle-for-2-eggs to replace the one I burned to death this morning, cuz when I was making my pear sauce I turned on the wrong burner, and a red thermos just like the one I used to have. See, we don't change all that much.

They didn't believe I was an old lady until I told them I'm sixty-four and a half. BTW, in the photo above, I tried on a blond wig. Wendy, my dresser from Impact, said she liked my real hair better. I would model each of my tops for her.

The clothes are smooshed in the car underneath a huge newspaper stand I got from my sister Donna, a barista at Starbucks. They were throwing it out. Said her manager, You must be a hoarder, Donna.

Far from it. She has a magnificent condo which is filled cheek by jowl with things to tickle your fancy, a home version of Ze Barnes Museum.



While there I had a chance to watch Oprah! Aha! So that's who Oprah is. I'd heard all about her. She had Ingrid Betancourt on the show who was released 18 months ago from SIX YEARS' captivity by guerrillas in Columbia. There were about 18 hostages altogether and most of them denounced her behavior b/c she talked back to her captors. Reminded me of the John McCain (remember him?)Vietname prison camp stories.

How else can I bore you to death? Let's see.



What's more b'ful than looking out the kitchen window? See poem about the fence at blog's end. Those were my poem-writing days. Hopefully, Bill Kulik will shake rattle and roll me so I can begin anew.

Autumn fruits are now available. While most of them are hard, like apples, pears are soft and juicy. I ate half for breakfast and then cut up 3 Bartletts for pear sauce. Boiled it w/water and a stick of cinnamon.

When I gave my last breadbaking class at the Abington Library, I brought cinnamon sticks to grate into the bread. Half a dozen of the kids had never seen a cinnamon stick before so I gave them each one. They began sucking them and really enjoyed it. Better than cigarettes, I told them. Then we launched into a discussion of smoking.

I ate two heaping bowlsful of pear sauce, along with my homemade whole wheat bread.

Would you believe that this bread dough made two big loaves? I like to listen to music when I bake bread. Lucky me! Selections from Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutti were on.



I love to sightsee while I drive. Everything looks so beautiful to me. Hmmm, dyou think there's something wrong with me? Ah, I'll find comfort in Bill Hess who feels the same way I do.

Railroad bridge, a deeper shade of purple, newly repainted.

Scott suggested I stand on the street corner and hawk papers. I drove SweetLips to the train station tonite amidst a beautiful lightning storm.

I'm listening now, not to music, not to the news, but to the sound of pattering rain and faraway toondar. Hope my backyard maple isn't hit by lightning.....oh no...what's that sound....if you don't hear from me, don't read my diaries when I'm gone.........

MY FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF FOR THE WHITE FENCE

First, there was the broad joy of
waking up to the hammering
of workmen next door,
making my coffee and carrying it out
to survey their work,
a trio of men in
swashbuckling belts like
gunmen of the wild west,
handsome, golden earring, fuzzy beard
all of it that makes men what they are.

Kindness makes them all the more masculine:
Elucidations for me of the partitions of
shiny vinyl
pure
clean
white as the snow
that would later
crown the top
forming a white wall of alabaster,
an illusion of safety,
against the unstoppable
inevitables of the world.

From my kitchen window,
the fence forever free
from earthly woe,
thanks to science,
unlike us,
men and women of the world,
the barcoded fence manufactured
in parts of the world where
people have no need of fences
live in huts not houses
and go home to nurse
their babies and sleep
six to a bed.

But I an American
thrummed with joy for my
neighbors,
their two young daughters
who gave me cushions
for my couches,
until suddenly I realized
I was banished from their world.

By nightfall, the fence was in place.
No picket fence, as I’d imagined,
but rising taller than a man,
a fortress keeping guard
like a Lord o'er his Vassal.

They'd walled me out.

The Great Wall of China,
really, the Great Wall of Cowbell Road,
that stands as a silent monument
to the isolation of people.
They did not mean it thus,
or did they?

Friends always we had stood together
shoulder to shoulder,
sipped iced tea on their patio,
talked tulips and squirrels.

Why this hasty retreat?

It grows more loathsome by the hour,
its inhumanity,
slap on the face to our
gregarious humanity.
I can no longer stroke its smooth cheeks anymore,
but must plant climbing vines to repossess
what once was mine,
must replace their coldness with my fire.

Sleep is the great healer. Of all wounds.
Of Life itself.

Over my morning coffee, I assay the fence,
once again,
as my yellow archangel claims its place along the ground.
For nothing is ever ours.
Nothing.
The fence can never be theirs,
nor mine either.

To Whom does it really belong?