Garbage Man
They describe a quiet place. They would describe it as yours, somewhere comfortable and familiar. Your pens and pencils, paper taken from your drawer, your ream. They would say that this is the place. Arrive there early, in your time, ideally the same each morning before anyone else is awake. You will hear the garbage trucks pass through. Nocturnal animals will know your steps on the floor, through the kitchen for coffee and a bowl of cereal. Time will stand still for you. They say time, yours, will stand still.
Garbage Truck
It’s what I know best, the delineation of this time. I live on the other side of it. Some mornings, time is as still as the cold air. Some mornings it awaits me, this quiet, cradling what I’ve made as my time. Others — I don’t believe in writer’s block. I’ve never had it before at least (progressing with the idea that we can only believe in what afflicts us). The words are always there in some form. At least some are. The idea of waking up to nothing is foreign. Something I have feels more insidious, much more divisive. On mornings like this there are too many voices, too many words and not one to quite sweep away what others might be debris. On my desk are stacks of too many stories, stretching out, getting comfortable, waiting to be written, until that time, occupying. They describe a quiet place. That somehow though must reside also in the imagination. So much rarer today, this harmony.
French Garbage Truck
Mornings I awake, wondering what’s in the back of the truck passing my front door. Whose trash? I wonder who put mine our and if it is enough already. Strong is the feeling, that’s what comes next from this desk: a protracted subtraction. The process of coming back to a core. It’s (again) time to rearrange, come from the bole, the wood, the distractions and the feeling of too many words. It’s time to whittle back. There are worse, more desperate needs — however, I know few more of a challenge. Garbage man comes. Must know his sound, his time. It’s the same as mine. That cold, still air is on his face.
Garbage man comes. This time, I want him to take from me what is no longer needed.
Posted: October 15th, 2009 under Blog.