Wake Up and Hum All Day Long

Sally Rooney, musing on

The musings of Leopold

Bloom, noted in her lecture,

That we just wake up, think all

Day long, and then go to sleep.

But if you looked at the crust

Of Earth scurrying with us,

Humans and human products,

You’d certainly think something

Was going on aside from

Rumination. It’s a bit

Like saying what a fridge does

Is squat in a corner and

Hum. Yes it does. It hums and

It pauses. And we are prone

To refer to the hum more

Than to what the humming does.

We say, the fridge is noisy

In the hotel room. We don’t

Say, the fridge is cooling food.

All those streams of consciousness

Let the creature interact

And function in its systems.

Bloom is off to get lotion.

Rooney’s off to give a talk.

If you think you're creative,

Imagine a narrative

Set in a chuntering fridge.