10.8.07
Yesterday I put the old hail-dinged 1994 Daihatsu in for a service and oil-and-grease at a country garage with a dark interior and nicely imperfect, handyman-built wooden storage shelves. A few cars were parked in a dusty, ditch-pocked gravel yard under a couple of dried-out trees. The two mechanics, in black overalls, were leaning into the engine of a big truck. I thought of Elizabeth Bishop’s classic poem -
Filling Station
Oh, but it is dirty!
- this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!
Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it's a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly dirty.
Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a dirty dog, quite comfy.
Some comic books provide
the only note of color -
of certain color. They lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.
Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet.)
Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
ESSO-SO-SO-SO
to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.
Elizabeth Bishop
I once lent my copy of Elizabeth Bishop's Geography III to someone and I never saw it again. Borrower, are you out there ?
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1 comment:
Hi Pam
you shd see the garages in Cambodia. I'll have to do a garage poem. Thanks for posting this one.
Love
Adam
ps new blogposts on my blog.
aa
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