From My Corner Seat Read online

  From My Corner Seat

  William Flewelling

  AuthorHouse™

  1663 Liberty Drive

  Bloomington, IN 47403

  www.authorhouse.com

  Phone: 1-800-839-8640

  © 2012 by William Flewelling. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

  First published by AuthorHouse 12/29/2011

  ISBN: 978-1-4685-3849-6 (sc)

  ISBN: 978-1-4685-3848-9 (ebk)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011963714

  Printed in the United States of America

  Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

  Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

  This book is printed on acid-free paper.

  Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  Contents

  Reformulating

  She Leaned To Cut

  the Blooms That Day

  “The Older Woman”

  BHS: Class of ’63

  The Cattle Come And Go

  A Birthday Thought

  A Satisfaction Known

  While Waiting

  On The Outdoor Bench

  I Say She’s Chasing Change

  Procedural Aplomb

  As Choristers Implore

  On Palmer Ridge

  Implicit Solemnity

  One Rose, Set Apart

  In Howell’s Paean

  An Unavoidable Passing,

  As It Seems

  He Watches Alzheimer’s

  In Rage

  The Familiar Crow Perch Tree

  Directions On The Air

  Shadow Work

  Just Like That Maple Burl

  The Deer In Flight

  A Stark Night

  All From A Fluster

  And Mrs.

  He Went Once More To Normandy

  An Explaining Of The Night

  An Exchange: Modest Enough

  The Sitting Still An Issue

  Tomatoes Win The Night

  One Man At Prayer

  An Unthought Legacy

  The Early Thunderstorm

  The Tulips

  A Hymn Is Sung

  On Mother’s Day

  A Quiet Reading Preferred

  Head In The Cloud

  Pictured Arrayed In

  Almost-Lines

  A Gathering

  Across The Shelf

  From The Chrysalis

  of Complaint

  When All Is In The Air

  And All The Rest

  Great? Or Merely

  Well Enough?

  Beggaring The Question

  The Comfort An Infant Glows

  At That Later Seam

  Acceptably Assessed

  A Surreptitious Sleight

  “In Obscurum”

  Intending Not To Overhear

  And, After The Breath…

  Inopportune Computer Glitch

  Approaching Compline

  Quite Useless For The Cause

  As Cast Aside

  A Visionary Dilemma

  The Count

  Sunshine’s Benefit Concert

  Sat At The Next Table

  The Quiet Man

  Balancing Act

  At Peace

  Met Amid Necessities

  Once Again, In Context

  Renewing Now

  Attending To The Chores

  So Open In Defense

  Lone Rabbit In Tall Grass

  Jack Remembered

  One Pause In Melancholy

  On Hilary Hahn:

  Brahms’ Violin Concerto

  All Aswirl Amok

  Air Beneath An Arm

  As I Ramble On

  The Old Man

  Recalled From Reverie

  So Known

  As Missing Now

  Exchange By Gesture

  Held At The Font

  We, Coming At The

  Last Of Times

  Coffee Ground

  Upon A Second Request

  With Utter Grace

  Ankh

  Correctly Poised

  Beloved Yet

  Upon Motet

  At Departure

  By Such Arrangements

  Re: Joyce

  Pen to Page

  “Begin Anywhere”

  Against May’s Mime

  Of Next July

  The Now-Bare Hill Crest

  Carmella

  Hard Frost, I See

  The Sign

  A Mote Of Non-Constraint

  Postlude: In Underplaying

  The Focusing Smoke

  As Thus Conviction Comes

  Reformulating

  A dark serenity

  glides solemn past review,

  oblivious and yet

  the intimate resolve

  of bitter mysteries.

  O Gentle River, baked

  in Summer sun, your strength

  slides laminar and smooth,

  continuing as peace

  threads graciously between

  stern looming heights; your sweep

  provides unruffled strength.

  On floating peace is borne

  those bloating agonies

  we own. They rise as arms

  those hills imply, to grope

  the skies, by cumulous

  ascent to soaring heights,

  that dissonance expose

  our dark serenity.

  WCF

  25 June 1999

  She Leaned To Cut

  the Blooms That Day

  It must have in fifty three,

  or maybe fifty four when she

  cut flowers by the door to wear

  at my lapel—a little boy

  on Mother’s Day. The one she chose

  for me—a tulip bud—shone red

  and bold because my mother lived,

  she said. And hers were bells of white—

  a sprig of lily of the valley—

  because her mother died the spring

  of forty eight. And now I find,

  if I should wear again the bloom

  on Mother’s Day in twenty twelve,

  I’d need to find myself a sprig

  of lily of the valley white.

  We buried her today, you see.

  WCF

  9 August 2011

  “The Older Woman”

  A timid sort of limp

  brings a purple shirted woman

  into the room. It’s warm

  and she’s in flip-flops, shorts

  and shirt, with wire rimmed glasses

  and freely flowing hair

  hung straight and cropped above
/>
  her nape. The Older Woman;

  so reads her shirt as she

  comes once and goes, returns

  to finish off her chores,

  self-bussing as we do.

  She glances as I glance,

  and smiles, and nods before

  she passes past my space

  with gimpy stride and slow,

  reluctant shuffled drawn

  behind her persistent way.

  WCF

  7 May 2010

  BHS: Class of ’63

  after news of the death of Pam Champion Wright

  We’ve reached an age: we read of death

  and find it all too tangible

  for us. So suddenly we look

  at fifty years, reunion, hear

  of names we’ve lost in time, of deaths

  among the people we once knew.

  The pretty girl in bobby socks;

  the tall boy—shy until he found

  the girl who makes him smile; the girl

  who owned delight in careful poise;

  and now another girl—a smile

  and bounce and pony tail: we look

  and all these faces are as ours—

  now tempered by the years, attuned

  to many things unknown when life

  was young and we commenced in free

  enticement toward the fruit of youth

  we’d shared. These deaths are strangely ours,

  extinguishing a glimpse on time

  and person, even on ourselves

  that once had seemed impregnable.

  We ramble now, defending time,

  asserting that we will adjust

  in busyness, in patience—all

  the while aware of memories

  no longer bringing faces near,

  and how these deaths grow closer now

  as bodies wear the grind of years.

  WCF

  27 July 2011

  The Cattle Come And Go

  Below us, down the slope,

  beyond the fence and mowed

  yard, in the flank high grass

  the cattle roam as restless

  in the sun this afternoon.

  I watch the rich brown hide

  that glistens broadly, moves

  relentlessly along

  the lower slope. I watch

  as we sit on the lawn;

  the grass stirs on the sides;

  the legs and belly are

  presumed. We talk and glance

  across the distance shared

  and words that dally, lean

  and crafted. Next, I look

  into the long grass; cattle

  no longer appear. I turn

  instead to dandle phrases

  in long allusions here.

  WCF

  3 June 2011

  A Birthday Thought

  for Sr. Cornelia on her 87th

  The anniversary day

  of birth: the coming goes

  in celebration, fades

  in knowing creeping time

  brings shuffle to the feet

  and frailty where once life

  was lithe and pert. We rise

  to greet the day once more,

  a day accounting life’s

  consistency and—yes—

  the dregs that long have steeped

  the quality of grace

  attentive here. The day

  begets its image, shows

  one’s singularity

  within the stirring ground

  wherein life rises once

  again and totters, free

  and gleeful over bliss

  that is the fractal means

  of satisfying one

  dear heart, the altar place

  of sheer delight in love.

  WCF

  27 June 2011

  A Satisfaction Known

  for Sr. Mary Fay on her 70 year Jubilee

  The many years roll on unthought

  until their many crests in sign

  at fifty, sixty, seventy

  or more. Then, on the looking back

  across the span from youth to age,

  the mellowing maturity

  draws from the heart, the belly, all

  the consecrated humanity

  so aptly offered once, those years

  before. Vocation works itself

  into the habits life discovers

  creatively emerging—known

  after they live a while—these years,

  that is—and mold a model, form

  a sample of the habit worn

  and rule observed, the family

  become of sisters under rule

  within the warp and woof of time.

  It all comes celebrated now

  in faces, futures, memories

  of those who welcomed, those who’ve shared

  and those who came into the roll

  of years that satisfy—complete

  unto today and lingering

  into tomorrows not yet guessed.

  WCF

  26 July 2011

  While Waiting

  On The Outdoor Bench

  The single black ant, searching, probes

  the concrete slab, meandering

  with jaunty bounce this way and that

  from sunshine into shade and near

  my foot just now. October sun

  is compromising with the air,

  a warmth against the back, a chill

  about the feet, down where the lone

  ant ambulates the barren slab

  in search of something able to fill

  desires while avoiding heedless steps

  of busy, passing feet, disaster

  for such as this considered ant.

  WCF

  19 October 2009

  I Say She’s Chasing Change

  One says she knows her—and

  would question trust on matters

  of money: not too long,

  at least. She grinned as she

  slipped round the corner, swung

  her swaying hips beyond

  the jamb and out of sight.

  Not long at all: then she

  returns; the dollars sift

  through fingers, counting four

  to calculate the change

  I’m due. A hand extends,

  the spray of dollars shown

  for me to grasp, a light

  inductive grin the shine

  that cures my waiting time.

  WCF

  7 May 2010

  Procedural Aplomb

  In face, a solemn matte

  deferral of a sight

  content with a human lot,

  no singularity

  imposes brightness’ spark.

  I wonder often how

  this cloture might unravel

  into the liminal

  intrusion, lithe and blithe

  of nothing more than one

  incisive smile. A slice

  as that into the core,

  unveiling to reveal,

  conceal, exceed the real

  with a reeling glimpse sublime.

  WCF

  4 May 2010

  As Choristers Implore

  As Ubi Caritas turns et

  amor, the singers’ faces loom

  in singu
lar array. I lift

  my eyes: a certain luring light

  illumines gracefully. I see

  that singing face as rapt, the eyes

  displaced to savor round in song

  toward ibi coming pointed next.

  The ibi I behold in that

  distracted face is as the ubi

  already sung within the swell

  of unison’s adept intent.

  NB: Ubi caritas et amor, ibi deus est. Latin refrain for “Where charity and love are, there is God.”

  WCF

  2 May 2010

  On Palmer Ridge

  Uncanny quiet in these hills:

  the Autumn breeze disturbing leaves

  that rattle on these twigs, the birch

  at whispering the secrets hid

  in silence on the ridge. We stand

  observing landscape fall and rise

  anon, to fall and rise again

  full compass round. The mounting hills

  are clad in wood, in leaves yet green

  and yellow green, a patch of pine,

  then orange, red, a yellow hue

  in splotches on that rising slope.

  But silence sounds: a tire rolls long

  on pavement, whining in its way.

  A saw lends whirring ring in echo

  from cross the way. They pause and leave

  this silence to be heard and, more,

  be felt beneath the whispering birch.

  I think the whisper tells of silence,