Welcoming the beginning of Autumn

 It is 10:45 pm and I am getting ready to go to bed.  Our street is extremely loud and it appears that there is one or many parties going on in the neighborhood.  Downtown Latino Fest is taking place Saturday and Sunday this weekend in Des Moines so maybe the celebration includes neighborhood festivities also. Octoberfest is also going on at Waterworks Park this weekend.  It has a heavy theme of German beers and activities that didn't strike my fancy.  The weather forecast suggested rain and thunderstorms but it actually turned out pretty nice.  I walked to Burger King and had a chocolate shake while reading some poems by Donald Justice.  




---

Here in Katmandu, by Donald Justice

We have climbed the mountain.
There's nothing more to do.
It is terrible to come down
To the valley
Where, amidst many flowers,
One thinks of snow,

As formerly, amidst snow,
Climbing the mountain,
One thought of flowers,
Tremulous, ruddy with dew,
In the valley.
One caught their scent coming down.

It is difficult to adjust, once down,
To the absence of snow.
Clear days, from the valley,
One looks up at the mountain.
What else is there to do?
Prayer wheels, flowers!

Let the flowers
Fade, the prayer wheels run down.
What have they to do
With us who have stood atop the snow
Atop the mountain,
Flags seen from the valley?

It might be possible to live in the valley,
To bury oneself among flowers,
If one could forget the mountain,
How, never once looking down,
Stiff, blinded with snow,
One knew what to do.

Meanwhile it is not easy here in Katmandu,
Especially when to the valley
That wind which means snow
Elsewhere, but here means flowers,
Comes down,
As soon it must, from the mountain.

 


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