From “imaginary garden with real toads”:
.
There is a song by Leonard Cohen, called
“Anthem”, which contains these marvelous lines:
“Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack, a crack, in everything–
That’s how the light gets in.”
I say, “That’s how the water gets in.”
======================================
The prompt:
For this Fireblossom Friday challenge, …. write a poem about a crack, fissure, rupture, split, or breaking point.
It can involve something tangible, or intangible. It can be in any form you like.
=========================================================================================
Bungalow with Four Dormer Gables
At night…
even better daytime,
I lay on my water bed
look up.
I see the years
of ceiling design created
by roof ice built up and melt,
hurricanes
and windy rain storms,
from the south.
.
Now, understand,
I am on the first floor.
One night I feel
drip
…..drip
………drip, drip
pause
drip, … splat on the pillow
…waking
I feel the pillow amazed…
IT”S WET !
.
Since it’s a water bed,
reason doesn’t enter in.
I lift the mattress cover
(it is like a regular mattress,
with a cover with hard sides
so the illusion is it’s
a regular bed…
just filled with water)
expecting to find a leak.
Puzzled…
I find it dry. Splat !
I hear drip
…..drip….splat...splat...
SIGH
.
Shingles around the gable
window are replaced…
then I’m informed
“dormer gable windows”
are difficult
to seal.“
.
Some shingles
were also replace
around the chimney…
they had blown off
… just as well to fix
the cracks in the roof
now.
.
Good grief Mary Jane !
The next rain storm
all of a sudden,
water POURED into the
living room.
Literally.
Come to find out,
the roofer, was a
sub-contractor and
put the shingles
next to the chimney
on UPSIDE DOWN
creating a FUNNEL EFFECT
with WATERFALL
to the living-room.
SIGH.
NO ! : words unfit
for children’s ears
were said
L O U D L Y.
.
Now the living room has
a pattern on the ceiling
for me to look at and
see what I can see in
the cracks and stains …
better than the wall paper
on the ceiling in the room
above the living-room !
.
Almost forty years,
drip, drip, splat.
Drag out
…..buckets
…….towels
… then eventually
a tarp to cover the bed.
Drip. .. Annoying drip…drip
IN THE FIRE PLACE.
Soft drip……
the carpet muffles…
in front of the fire place:
….soft drip, drip.
.
SIGH.
.
Last year,
An angel named, BoB
showed up.
I told him I didn’t care
if he poured tar over
the light gray roof…
I WANTED it to STOP
and to STOP N O W.
And,
why didn’t it ever rain
in on the second floor?
Sigh.
He got technical,
and explained about the
four dormer gables,
and the chimney…
Sigh.
.
I just was tired of buckets,
towels and tarps…
and plaster falling down
on me while I was sleeping,
creating art work …
sort of Rorschach Test
on the ceilings
that even came back thru
scraping plaster , bun
and painting over.
.
Hallelujah !
Bob DID IT.
.
At the little white
Bungalow with Four Dormer Gables
drips, splats, pours
during catastrophic
weather….
HAVE STOPPED !
.
Sigh.
.
Hallelujah !
Hot chocolate
and buttered bread
all around !
.
.
siggiofmaine 