Umbrella Plans
The heat calls us under the umbrella
1.
I have a small collection of umbrellas
from several countries, each one
made in China. It’s a Chinese
umbrella plan that works better
than my umbrella plan.
2.
The heat calls some under parasols.
My basic umbrella plan when I write a poem
is to be indoors with my umbrella.
I keep a second umbrella under the front seat
of my SUV. But if rain starts falling on me
while I’m on a different continent and trying to write
I’ve planned the poem badly.
I was in Rouen working on a poem in my head
while walking along the rue du Gros Horlage
when rain began bouncing off me and the cobblestones
and the alert shopkeepers began wheeling
from just inside their shops
racks of Made-in-China umbrellas exactly
as they had planned.
3.
The heat caused Captain Kirk to shout “raise shields”
Ahead of me the lion-heart of Richard I
was lying in its Rouen Cathedral sepulcher
exactly as he had planned
and to the south in Limousin his entrails
were lying in their own sepulcher
in the chapel of the Château de Châlus-Chabrol
as he had not planned
and his head and various corporeal attachments were lying
in Fontevraud Abbey in Anjou, near the body of his father
as he had probably planned.
A clever rainy-day umbrella plan that did not preclude
a hot bolt from a crossbow, a sunny
April morning.
4.
The heat calls us into the shadows
The ruins of the Château de Châlus-Chabrol which he was besieging
now house the ruins of his Chalus sepulchre and its
gut-wrenching moment.
At his Fontevraud grave the hands of his effigy
are groping his chest and abdomen as if
looking for something.
At his Rouen tomb his effigy is praying, its hands devoutly
pressed together over its heart which, forensic archaelogists report
has mummified and dissolved into an obscure brown powder.
I took a digital photo of the effigy
which will some day dissolve into random pixels
and – it’s still a plan – I keep the umbrella.