The Poetry of Rooftops
A rainbow before the rain? Who am I to argue with loveliness? Still. I thought a rainbow didn't herald rain, but announced its glory after. I'm sitting on my favorite perch, the step up to our room on the roof, the Sky Room. Gray heavy masses hover over chariot-like bundles of cumulus. Horns. Dogs. Distant music. Is "the environment" always as right here, in front of you, around you, to your left, to your right, above you, as it is in Guanajuato? I don't think so. I think that's one reason people move to Guanajuato--there's something muffled about many of the places we leave behind.
Dark sinewy lines thread through the breastlike curves of the clouds, swimming rapidly like sperm. What will the clouds do next? Are they alive, these clouds? Not by conventional definition. Yet they move, change, join, separate, are born, die. Meiosis in action. Isn't that life?
To my left, the chain link fence, filled with green plastic sheeting, that our neighbors built for reasons we've never understood. To my right, T-shirts, sheets, pillow cases swing on clotheslines. The poetry of rooftops. Ever since my boarding school days, when I'd find solace in the sanctuary of the St. Mary's School fire escape, gazing at the tops of houses in Raleigh, N.C., I've loved rooftops. So did my buddy Francie from "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn."
Suddenly, without warning, the peal of church bells. They stop as soon as they start. And the threat--or is it the promise?--of rain.
Rock music and roosters co-habitate.
There are plenty of laws in Mexico, but they seem an abstraction, less about impacting daily life than do the laws in the States, like, say, zoning, or no smoking. You can play music as loud as you want here, and no one cares. Why would they? People breathe music here. Early one Christmas morning in the late 90s, Barry and I hiked from the nearest village, where we had spent Christmas Eve drinking tea with our pension owner, to the national park in Michoacan where the famous monarch butterflies gather after their long flight south from Canada. We walked in the early morning stillness, the silence interrupted only by birdsong. I felt like one of the Wise Men, soon to come upon my jewel. Suddenly an artillery of radio sounds blared out of a farm. We jumped, wanting to hide from the assault. The screaming announcer's voice followed us for half a mile before fading.
The thing about immediacy is, you don't get to pick and choose. You get it all, the sweet and the shit.
Between the moment when I was gazing out at the dusky world, and when I glanced down to scribble on my journal page, the evening lights went on.
God, may I be open to this smelly, earthy, lusty sensuality. May it steep into my worrying, restless, busy mind and rest me. May I be one with this coarse, beautiful world,
The gray sperm lines have merged with the breasts. And the rainbow, it went off to find another pot of gold.
Dark sinewy lines thread through the breastlike curves of the clouds, swimming rapidly like sperm. What will the clouds do next? Are they alive, these clouds? Not by conventional definition. Yet they move, change, join, separate, are born, die. Meiosis in action. Isn't that life?
To my left, the chain link fence, filled with green plastic sheeting, that our neighbors built for reasons we've never understood. To my right, T-shirts, sheets, pillow cases swing on clotheslines. The poetry of rooftops. Ever since my boarding school days, when I'd find solace in the sanctuary of the St. Mary's School fire escape, gazing at the tops of houses in Raleigh, N.C., I've loved rooftops. So did my buddy Francie from "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn."
Suddenly, without warning, the peal of church bells. They stop as soon as they start. And the threat--or is it the promise?--of rain.
Rock music and roosters co-habitate.
There are plenty of laws in Mexico, but they seem an abstraction, less about impacting daily life than do the laws in the States, like, say, zoning, or no smoking. You can play music as loud as you want here, and no one cares. Why would they? People breathe music here. Early one Christmas morning in the late 90s, Barry and I hiked from the nearest village, where we had spent Christmas Eve drinking tea with our pension owner, to the national park in Michoacan where the famous monarch butterflies gather after their long flight south from Canada. We walked in the early morning stillness, the silence interrupted only by birdsong. I felt like one of the Wise Men, soon to come upon my jewel. Suddenly an artillery of radio sounds blared out of a farm. We jumped, wanting to hide from the assault. The screaming announcer's voice followed us for half a mile before fading.
The thing about immediacy is, you don't get to pick and choose. You get it all, the sweet and the shit.
Between the moment when I was gazing out at the dusky world, and when I glanced down to scribble on my journal page, the evening lights went on.
God, may I be open to this smelly, earthy, lusty sensuality. May it steep into my worrying, restless, busy mind and rest me. May I be one with this coarse, beautiful world,
The gray sperm lines have merged with the breasts. And the rainbow, it went off to find another pot of gold.
posted by Louisa at 7:05 PM
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