March 28: Lost Keys, Mark Strand, "The Garden"

I have lost my keys.  Well, actually, I have misplaced my keys.  They are not in my normal coat pocket.  They are not in my house or my car.  Therefore, I believe that I have left them on my desk at work.  At least, that is what I'm hoping.

My wife sometimes calls me the absent-minded professor.  I have a habit of losing things temporarily.  I get distracted, walk off, forget.  When I was a child, I was highly unfocused.  I bounced from reading to writing to wanting to digging up a dinosaur in the backyard to finding a dirty magazine under my brother's mattress.

That may sound like ADHD.  I have never been diagnosed.  My mother's solution for my erratic attention was making me take piano lessons.  It worked.  I was able to practice for extended periods of time at the keyboard.  And that ability to concentrate spilled over into other areas of my life.

However, I still get distracted, still misplace things.

Poetry helps Saint Marty focus, as well.

The Garden

by:  Mark Strand

          for Robert Penn Warren

It shines in the garden,

in the white foliage of the chestnut tree,   

in the brim of my father’s hat

as he walks on the gravel.

In the garden suspended in time   

my mother sits in a redwood chair:   

light fills the sky,

the folds of her dress,

the roses tangled beside her.

And when my father bends

to whisper in her ear,

when they rise to leave

and the swallows dart

and the moon and stars

have drifted off together, it shines.

Even as you lean over this page,   

late and alone, it shines: even now   

in the moment before it disappears.