Fall falls slow in Lakonia
Fall falls slow in Lakonia
by Mark Sargent
Torn spoke-broke parasols
the spent umbrellas of summer
cluster around the garbage bins.
Wood stacks bone dry await release.
Summer clings to orchards and rock,
bask, don’t turn to fresh tasks,
work will wait another week.
You can work long and hard
cultivating don’t know mind
and still know too much
of nothing.
18 October 2013
Hmmm. Bringing the two stanzas together. Summer leftovers: “torn spoke-broke parasols” no longer needed. “Wood stacks bone dry await release” of fires to heat a house. “Summer clings to orchards” in the form of apples, rotten perhaps, to “rock” maybe as moss. But fall hasn’t taken over summer’s lazy haziness. “Don’t turn to fresh tasks, work will wait another week.”
Summers it seems “you can work long and hard cultivating” unawareness and non-thinking, a “don’t know mind” which “still” can become “too much of nothing.” In Lakonia, the dormant unconscious mind of summer hangs on to the active conscious mind of fall like a narcotic.