little domesticities

Our Lady of the Snows

In white,
the unpainted statue of the young girl
on the side altar
made the quality of mercy seem scrupulous and calm.

When my mother was in a hospital drying out,
or drinking at a pace that would put her there soon,
I would slip in the side door,
light an aromatic candle,
and bargain for us both.
Or else I'd stare into the day-moon of that face
and, if I concentrated, fly.

Come down! come down!
she'd call, because I was so high.

Though mostly when I think of myself
at that age, I am standing at my older brother's closet
studying the shirts,
convinced that I could be absolutely transformed
by something I could borrow.
And the days churned by,
navigable sorrow.

--Robert Hass


Have to say that I'm not feeling the sorrow of this poem today. I've been concerned with the little domesticities that can fill a day with much satisfaction. I'm currently taking a break from mopping the floor and letting two rooms dry before moving on. Boyfriend began building a compost pile in our backyard, and is right now hanging out in the bedroom with the two dogs. There will of course be doggie prints on the floor later, but I need to see the smooth boards just for a minute.

I do relate much to the ideas that, "...convinced that I could be absolutely transformed by something I could borrow," and, "bargain for us both." I've thought about that quite a bit of late. In the current legal, employment, and financial cul-de-sac boyfriend and I have found ourselves in I've wondered what I could bargain and how I could be transformed. Transformed in the sense of getting into the big what-I-want. I don't think you can. You certainly can't borrow someone's style because it's still you in it. And all this gets very sticky because, aren't we our dreams too? We'd have to be. And as much as the boy bargained for a sober mother and to be his older brother he wouldn't be, but the dreams were just as much a part of him. Which is why I think these places we find ourselves in life are, "navigable sorrows." Somehow, we get a compass through them by dreaming of something else. Trying to dream, anyhow.

Days like this, it gets closer. A compost pile in preparation for the garden beds to come this spring, a clean house, the smell of laundry, the promise of a shower and a soft bed, dogs and cats lounging everywhere, and boyfriend is cooking dinner. It doesn't look so far off from where I want to be and, "made the quality of mercy seem scrupulous and calm..."