“Make electric helpers do all your tiresome, beauty-consuming tasks.”
— Ad for General Electric appliances, 1920s
Because, yeah, I have other things to do, like a big, fat nothing, like looking at the sky, like cutting herbs and smelling the shears, like sitting in the sun.
Could I get some help over here? My beauty is at threat of being consumed.
Me! Me! Me!
- Bring my tiara.
- Turn my bread into buttered toast.
- Tell me something funny.
- Look deep into my eyes and lie to me about myself.
- Read to me from Billy Collins.
The Dead
Billy Collins
The dead are always looking down on us,
they say,
while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,
they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats,
of heaven as they row themselves slowly through eternity.
They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth,
And when we lie down in a field or on a couch,
Drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon,
They think we are looking back at them,
which makes them lift their oars and fall silent and wait,
like parents,
for us to close our eyes
In other, more prosaic words, “enjoy every sandwich”.
The Lunch Encounter 
or maybe Yeats?
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Lovely.