August Morning
by Albert Garcia
It’s ripe, the melon
by our sink. Yellow,
bee-bitten, soft, it perfumes
the house too sweetly.
At five I wake, the air
mournful in its quiet.
My wife’s eyes swim calmly
under their lids, her mouth and jaw
relaxed, different.
What is happening in the silence
of this house? Curtains
hang heavily from their rods.
Ficus leaves tremble
at my footsteps. Yet
the colors outside are perfect—
orange geranium, blue lobelia.
I wander from room to room
like a man in a museum:
wife, children, books, flowers,
melon. Such still air. Soon
the mid-morning breeze will float in
like tepid water, then hot.
How do I start this day,
I who am unsure
of how my life has happened
or how to proceed
amid this warm and steady sweetness?
From Skunk Talk. Bear Star Press, 2005.
Reprinted with Permission of the author.
Read this and other poems by Albert Garcia in Skunk Talk, available to purchase online here. It is also featured in the anthology How to Love the World.
Albert Garcia begins “August Morning” with the scent of a ripe melon that wakes him, perfuming the house “too sweetly.” And throughout the rest of the poem, he keeps opening his senses wide to the moment at hand, watching his wife’s eyes “swim calmly” in sleep, feeling the “ficus leaves tremble,” and absorbing the exuberant colors of flowers outside—“orange geranium, blue lobelia.” It can be tempting to speed past quiet times like these, when we feel ourselves so suddenly present in our lives that we “wander from room to room” like someone in a museum, marveling at what William Stafford has called “pieces of heaven”—those instants of undisturbed stillness that show up unbidden, often before the day begins with its many distractions. This feeling of completeness can be accompanied by the same question the poet seems to ask here: How can we possible deserve “this warm and steady sweetness” when others are suffering, and the world remains an unjust place for so many? It is difficult to embrace such joy, yet perhaps we can trust that resting and recharging in moments like these will allow us to give our whole selves later to reshaping this world as a kinder, gentler, and more welcoming place for all of its inhabitants.
Invitation for Writing & Reflection: Can you remember a time when the fullness of your life felt almost overwhelming, when you offered yourself the gift of being present to that small joy, in spite of all that remains broken and in need of repair?
ABOUT THE POET: Albert Garcia
Albert Garcia has written three collections of poetry: Rainshadow (Copper Beech Press), Skunk Talk (Bear Starr Press), and A Meal Like That (Brick Road Poetry Press). His poetry has been published in numerous journals, former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s column, “American Life in Poetry,” on “A Writer’s Almanac,” and appears in anthologies including “How to Love the World.” Garcia is a former professor and dean at Sacramento Community College.
POETRY SELECTION AND COMMENTARY BY JAMES CREWS
James Crews is the author of four collections of poetry: The Book of What Stays, Telling My Father, Bluebird, and Every Waking Moment. He is also the editor of two anthologies: Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and have been reprinted in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry and featured on Tracy K. Smith’s podcast, The Slowdown. James teaches at SUNY-Albany and lives with his husband in Vermont.
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