98poems/learning

It was the summer I ate mangoes,
dripping over the kitchen sink.
Despite all I had read,
and what I knew about the necessity
of sitting down to eat,
of doing nothing else
at all while you eat –
meaning no apples when you walk,
no popcorn in front of the t.v.
I knew all this.
But it was all so complicated at the time.
It was Zen cooking to eat a mango at all-
by which I mean I was
doing the best I could,
as the Zen maxim states
to make the very best meal you can
with what you have in your cupboard
right now.

It was a confusing time
when I bought a Pepsi Cola
and turned on daytime t.v.
without being sick.
I was exhausted that’s all,
by my recent move,
the year’s events,
the sudden onset of summer,
though it had arrived late,

He said he had to see
if he could learn to work again,
after the winter slump.
Just this morning
I called A.T. Cross seeking a cure
for my dried out fountain pen nib.
“We recommend not storing them
full of ink,” she said.
I hadn’t thought I was storing it,
I simply couldn’t find the top
of my desk for several weeks.
Nor the top of the kitchen counter,
nor the table.
Tops of things simply couldn’t be found.
My pen went dry,
my computer forgot how to turn
itself on where it was left,
I ate mangoes over the kitchen sink.

7/8/98