On some other dimension
alive, but invisible to us
“This breakfast is restaurant worthy,” says my spouse Janyce digging her fork sideways into the tomatillo and Mexican cheese topped omelette. A few minutes ago, I got up out of bed to make it for us, whisking up four cracked eggs and pouring them into a buttery pan set on high heat. Our dog is on her bed in the kitchen near the table patiently abiding by the rule to sit still while we eat. Janyce holds one arm down by her side with a small piece of boiled chicken. I marvel at how she can train the dog with one hand and enjoy her breakfast with the other.
My emotions are mixed this morning. Covid and weather and indecision has changed our plans three times already and we’re at a loss for how to begin the day. Lately the world is full of unspeakable horrors and sadness. I don’t want to to write about the truth of it all. But it’s also the start of summer: graduations, lobster dinners with my parents back from Florida, Janyce and I with our feet in the plastic dog pool last Sunday while we sipped cold drinks under the shade of the tree in our yard. And laughed.
There is plenty of time to start again, time for one more cup of coffee, time for some poetry to reset the day. I like this poem for the imagery of everyday people appearing and disappearing in the fog. Makes me think about how ephemeral emotions can be. And life will go on. Despite everything. It goes on.
FOG
by Alison Luterman
We don’t have snow here
but some mornings the whole world
is white and hushed and soft with fog
and whatever troubles we went to sleep
clutched to our thudding hearts
have loosened overnight and are dissolving
in mist. The regal hills
to the East have been erased
behind a cottony scrim, and people
appear to appear
out of nowhere in the dawn hush.
An old woman in mask and gloves
pushes her shopping cart
full of salvaged empties. A mother hauls
two babies up the street, one in a backpack,
one in a stroller. A man
with dreadlocks and headphones
cruises by on his bike,
no-hands. All of them
whoosh into the frame
and then vanish. Like the future, or the past,
or some other dimension, alive,
but invisible to us.