There's always room.

 There’s always room. 

I have been cleaning house, a room at a time, a room a day. Dusting, vacuuming - but not in the usual way, not the usual dusting and vacuuming. Moving the furniture; hoovering the walls as well as the floors; pulling books out of shelves one by one; washing the baseboards, lintels, jambs, and doors; touching up the woodwork, healing nicks and scratches.

     It’s a mania of sorts, not in the strict, psychological, DSM-IV sense,* but still a deep, desperate desire for order, a “blessed rage,” though not, as in the poem, for natural order, or for being able to see order, or even sing order. Rather a fury for grappling things into order and commanding them to stay there, to shake off all dust and dullness and to shine in place.

     The dust and the grit and the grime - the specks that have gathered together, known one another, and damply multiplied - are to be corralled, wiped up, scrubbed, or sucked up, and carted away. Every crumb is to be lifted from every surface. Stray hair is to be plucked out of the carpet by the roots. Mildew is to be bleached off the ceiling. Scratches and dents will be disappeared.

the foundation of the universe (artificial color added)

    But is anything entirely expunged? Or does it all shrink and go into hiding. The cleaning is begun with an eye to order but the eye soon comes to see - I only have to walk next door into the room I cleaned the day before yesterday - that there will never be more than an appearance of order soon to disappear itself. Underneath: erosion, collapse, crumble, things falling apart, degradation, entropy. The order that sustains the universe is an illusion, for beneath it is jello older than the universe itself.

06.15.18

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 * “abnormally and persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable mood . . . accompanied by at least three additional symptoms,” for example “inflated self-esteem or grandiosity, decreased need for sleep, pressure of speech, flight of ideas, distractibility, increased involvement in goal-directed activities or psycho-motor, agitation, [or] excessive involvement in pleasurable activities with a high potential for painful consequences”