A PAIN IN THE NECK

PLUS: Full Moon Sightings

I hurt myself the other day trying to do something – possibly without thoroughly thinking it through, or being careful enough, or calling my stepson to come over and help me, or hiring someone, or best of all, just letting the problem sit for a while until the neighbor who created the problem in the first place took care of it; which is exactly what eventually happened three days after I took my cartoon-banana-peel-heels-in-the-air-flat-on-my-back splat at the bottom of the small gulley between the neighbor’s fence and our back yard.

Or another way of putting it, in fact the very way my wife did put it, is to say I hurt myself because I refuse to act my age. Meaning, pretty damn old.

This is the same person who not infrequently tells me to grow up.

Which, by the way, I have been working on diligently, because I love her so much and she deserves to be in a relationship with an adult. But now apparently, she wants to be in a relationship with an adult who acts his age. This is something I’m not at all sure I’m ready for, primarily because of the ludicrous number of years involved.

Besides, I just figured out growing up! And now, right away, I have to be old?

On the other hand, this recent experience tells me that it can really hurt when you don’t act your age. Probably something I could have confirmed all along if I hadn’t been so dense.

It was my neck, and I’m much better, thank you.

-Bill

OAK SHADOWS

My neck complained all night 
about the way I treated it the day before.
So I kept falling out of sleep 
again and again, and every time I fell I saw 
moon light fallen on the bedroom windows’ paper shades.
It was a full moon. It lit the room dim silver and cast a web
of oak branch shadows across the shades—   
an intricate, projection of the thick woods behind the house. 

The shadows dazzled me each time I woke. 
They were master paintings, Japanese scrolls,
calligraphy in silver light and shadow. 
They were a visitation. A chorus that sang all night.

I felt fortunate to see them every time I fell awake.
I’d watch them for a while and then I’d slip 
back down inside my warm inviting drowse
and sleep would find me once again.

Bill Jeffers
1/18/2022

FIVE SMALL FULL MOONS

Full moon, oak tree shadows, so beautiful,
greet me through the night,
every time that pain in my neck
wakes me.
___

I got up to pee
and it was peering 
in all the windows.
___

How did it get up there like that?
I saw it at Enchanted Rock. 
That round hole full of water? 
Way up on top? Shining?
Now it’s up there. Lighting the sky.
___

I dreamed I drank my milk 
from a black bowl.
___

In my restless dream 
that sweet daughter 
I never had
wakes me again and again.
Daddy, she says,
her round face shining.

Bill Jeffers
1/18/2022

Moon painting by Starr, a wonderful artist and unforgettable character who was homeless and one of the early participants in Art From the Streets in ATX. Check them out at artfromthestreets.org