Thursday, September 15, 2005

Dispatch from a Deadbeat Muse

Summer leaves Portland without a going-away party. Summer slips away in the dead of night, skipping town with unpaid debts, without a note, no forwarding address, last seen headed south. You wake up early one morning and it's 50 degrees, and you shiver and say, "Oh . . ."

You feel dumped. Summer ditched you. Summer met someone living on the equator, or in Argentina, or somewhere, and moved in with them, and they aren't even as cute as you are. It must have been the accent.

You forage in the kitchen cabinets for coffee beans. You look outside at the stack of firewood. You start making plans for winter, even though it's still hazy in the distance.

The motorcycle starts to feel fierce again. The leathers feel cozy instead of deathly hot. The visor fogs a little in the morning and you realize you'd forgotten how that happens. The little inconvenience seems almost cute.

Summer will be back. It'll come crawling back eventually, drunk and crazy, ranting about the tropics, smelling of Ylang-Ylang and toucan feathers. It always does.

6 comments:

cfollymacher said...

Summer, that migrant tramp.


(great post, Tom!)

Anonymous said...

Since summer is a'going out, here's Ezra Pound's parody of "Summer is icumen in":

Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm,
So 'gainst the winter's balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm,
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.

Random Michelle K said...

And here I was excitedly waiting for autumn and winter.

clara* said...

AWESOME post. i may have to quote you. don't worry i'll link back...

Robin Alexa said...

Saw this over on Clara's blog. Did you write this??? It's REALLY good. REALLY REALLY!

Unknown said...

Thanks for all the feedback and the quote. Yes, I did write this. Glad you liked it.