A Slow Thing Stirs in the Shadow of the Bougainvillea

I love the line above, from a poem, In January, by Lorna Dee Cervantes.  I think it would make a perfect short story title for some sort of weird Florida story, full of magical realism.  For pure strangeness on the Wierd-o-meter, Florida wins hands down.

In the poem, that slow something is the end of a man's life.  Since death is inevitable, there is a certain acceptance of that finality.  That slow something is neither good, nor bad, or perhaps it's both, but it's there nevertheless and inexorable, inescapable.

Of course, it doesn't have to be death in the shadow of the bougainvillea.  It can be love, awareness, joy, sorrow.  It gets to a sense of anticipation, the waiting that sometimes takes over when your life isn't quite what you want and you feel change at your edges but it moves at its own perfect pace, beyond you and your influence.  Which, as I write it, reminds me of another brilliant line, this one from an Auden poem, For What is Easy: "fate is not late."  I found that poem after my heart attack and understood perfectly, in that moment, how all things come at the right time, even if you are sure they haven't, are too full of what ifs and if onlys.