Lately it seems I am doing everything by half.
Half-hearing the morning warble of Robins,
the gunshot-terror of the morning news.
The moon, cold and pockmarked and hard,
is not dainty.
The moon belches starlight,
has no gender.
You may think it inconsequential that an empty
tube of toothpaste is not, if pressed, empty,
but has more to give of itself. You may prefer
odes to lofty ideas, or nature, or love…
In my pocket I have access to all the world’s knowledge:
calculators, AI, essays, videos to solve any equation.
Still, when the vet says 50% chance of permanent paralysis
and, though the literature is sparse, a high probability of
Myelomalacia—fatal, painful—I am as the hiker who…
You don’t need to watch the news. Walk the
dog. Lay in the grass. Watch a cloud settle
into evening’s funereal pews. That terror which
lies in wait will be there when you return…
I’m in a cabana on a beach in Cancún looking
Upon light-blue water so warm you can walk
Right in, no need to adjust to the temperature.
Neither the moon nor stars alone allure.
Celestial lips may good metaphors make,
yet we can’t long mere metaphor endure:
we seek cliché for companionship’s shake.
Somewhere over Tulsa the pilot warns
we’re passing through a storm. Experienced
in flight, trusting the engineers who designed
and built this plane, we pop headphones back
in our ears, turn to our movies and TV…
The self-help book says life
is a set of competing priorities:
If this is more urgent than that,
do this. I nearly flunked out of
high school, ignoring such advice.
The alarm goes off at 4. I will myself to my
feet, not for a grand mission, but to catch
a flight. In the predawn darkness, driving the
101 to the 405, I recite Clifton, Keats, & Limón