A Paradise

If there was a sunrise in my paradise, it would be blue.
The sunset would be gold and pink and violent,
but the sunrise would be blue, with perhaps a touch of orange in the clouds.
Not just any blue, though: a warm blue, a welcoming blue.
Caribbean-sea blue, under a bright mid-day sun
(without the mid-day, of course)
sparkling with ripples and plays of light
so clear you could see the stars and sun beyond
except for the foamy tips of the waves
orange with the early-morning light.

We'd wake up to the crashing of the waves on the shore,
lounging in daybeds on the veranda, birds in
well-ordered trees around us, but not above us.
Our white-brick, blue-bricked patio would have a sunken wall
so that nothing stands between us and the sea
and at our perching elevation we can see
the morning gulls swoop down and scoop up fish.

The awning shades the other half of the patio--
we like to wake by sunlight and fresh air
and watch the sun rise up from the sea.
We won't have slept inside since last week,
when the rain tumbled us from our outdoor beds
just past midnight, and the breeze tried to steal my blanket
but you caught it, and tied it back down, and laughed at me
for forgetting to secure it as I usually do.
"You summoned the rain," you said, and perhaps I did.

Calendar Claustrophics

Funnily enough they seem to like tight spaces,
fit right in under the desk or in the pantry,
wedged between the cereal and three-year-old cans of beans.
You'll find one with a colander on her head,
or a book across his bonnet;
there's one wrapped in a tablecloth
and another curled in a newspaper recycling bin.

Perfectly rational people, really--
they're just claustrophobic, calendar claustrophobic.
Paws pulling back when the water rises,
clambering to stay dry, sinking islands of time,
they panic not from tight spaces, but
rather from the closing in of calendar blocks.

Fill up a day here, mark a day there--
schedule three appointments on a Wednesday
and don't forget to pick up groceries after work.
Thursday's the bridal shower, Friday your mother's;
Monday for a mandatory-voluntary coworker potluck.

Once-blank pages with neat empty squares
now closed in with scribbles and notes:
hear that gasping under the table? She's just
looking for a lost contact, I think.

Don't ask for his Sunday; Saturday is already gone.
He'll come out of hiding Tuesday if you're quiet,
just promise not to take him to the game.

At least it's not spiders, or tornadoes or sharks,
and they'll climb the ladders and enter the cellars just fine.

Only there's too little time, for calendar--