Strange Cloud

By Paula Friedman

Written en plein air in Hood River, Oregon

Starting home
after the writing, crossing past shoppers, closing
purse, notebook, pack, untwisting keyring, I’m seeing
not only the page
filled in my usual coffeshop, between the noise
the tiny cookie crumbs their pale Italian soda,
for two hours with rough thoughts
ensketching some new plotline (elderly the woman
looks for means: Survive; remember;
never let it go; the freedom; (how we danced
all night); the freedom rides;
remember—), all the sketching out, one chapter, two,
but seeing the impasto (or imbroglio? intaglio?)
upon the walls and other rough-thought words (Now finally
the novel, now at last [once cover done, once press,
once—] novel, soon, so now—)

      I, hearing words and seeing
all of this, unlock (my mind) the door,
get in, strap belt, turn key,
Look, look behind you (Yes, look back, oh yes!)
I see (Check view behind, in front, side, other
side) the road is clear here—no,
two bikers flicking by—start into
traffic, see a man in teeshirt
not unlike my own but that’s a chain
inside his mind; he passes, like so much,
like that one slicing fast uphill across the library lawn; my eyes,
it must be, watering; somehow no one has brought it up.
I move into thin traffic, down through town
then high—the miles the farther up the Valley road
reach pinkened, gilded, mirroring; the fire-clouds and smoke,
no not at all the little people like ourselves.
Out here in country /’side my house
(pink light) set words, /set sorrows down.