
Today Is The Perfect Day To Go To The Beach
June 19 — I’m still working the graveyard shift. Having coffee at 6pm is the equivalent of having my first cup at 6am. One of the hardest parts is eating healthy and trying to plan my meals. When I’m hungry nothing is open.
This afternoon before I started working I made a trip to the grocery store. Prague is experiencing a heat wave. I’m completely fine with it. Talk to me about heat waves when the temperatures are over 100 degrees and include humidity. Even without air conditioning in my apartment I’m comfortable.
In Prague it stays light out very late and the sun comes up very early. This has been a thing all over Europe. They don’t break up the countries time zones like in the States. I don’t mind. Today I noticed because although it’s late in the afternoon, almost evening, it seems like noon. Then I had a strange thought, It’s the perfect day to go to the beach.
While walking down the street I almost tripped when I thought this. Even thinking this is out of the ordinary for me. I must look like a zombie walking around. I certainly feel like one. I haven’t even had coffee yet. Zombies don’t go to the beach.
Almost as quickly I was reminded of one of my favorite poems. It’s about days like today when the world is happy and you are mourning alone. As I walk by a common area around the corner from the apartments I noticed benches. If I stopped and sat on them I could reenact the poem, but I don’t want to. It’s time to start my work day.
When I am asked
When I am asked
how I began writing poems,
I talk about the indifference of nature.
It was soon after my mother died,
a brilliant June day,
everything blooming.
I sat on a gray stone bench
in a lovingly planted garden,
but the day lilies were as deaf
as the ears of drunken sleepers
and the roses curved inward.
Nothing was black or broken
and not a leaf fell
and the sun blared endless commercials
for summer holidays.
I sat on a gray stone bench
ringed with the ingenue faces
of pink and white impatiens
and placed my grief
in the mouth of language,
the only thing that would grieve with me.
My end of day gratitude:
- Poems.
- Benches.
- A beautiful day.

