Painting by Elaine Brown Folgar
Duet With Emily in the Key of U
At the end of another busy summer, her line rings true
that the grass so little has to do—
like monks sitting upright for hours with two
or three kitchen chores, and an occasional interview
with Roshi about some koan. A window view
like Emily's would have surveyed this green milieu
from above: file after file of silent blades, street and avenue
empty, except for light cricket traffic. Who
wouldn't envy such quiet? The duties of the wind are few
to boot, she wrote. Add clouds and rain. All pooh-pooh
our busyness, and, each in their way advises us to eschew
or limit it—practice, regrettably, we find hard to stick to
for long. The result is enterprise perpetually askew.
No wonder—tumbled by its turbulence—she withdrew.
