After Kay Ryan
They say it is the best time
to make hay. But more
information is chillingly
lacking. Where can you go
to learn to hoe, what schedule
is recommended for sharpening
tines? Do they want stacks or bales?
Will yours be used for packing
freight or feeding cows? And which
alternative is worse, nighttime
or rain? They don’t explain if there
are fines for a wrong choice,
one is left alone imagining
the prisoner’s wails.
Anxiety has strange power
over obvious beauty:
apricot blossoms, gallons
of bees. The screen’s invisibility,
letting in the buzzing breeze,
preempted by the half
empty glass—see how
the mesh is torn, flaps
where a cat once went.
Mend replaces thoughts
more glad or grateful; sting
keeps us cowering
in the house, oblivious
to nature’s lending.
It’s funny how despair
is sturdy, fosters no instinct
for repair, how emptiness
staunches neither the rush
of errant velvet insects
into the room, nor a scent
of their plush bower.
I’ve heard mothers say
take socks, or more clean shirts,
you never know what sort
of dirt you’ll find in China.
I’ve promised friends
I’ll take pictures, as if our
likenesses could talk, we walk
ourselves around the block on leashes.
But what is heed that we
need pack it on our backs,
heavy and clunking, and what
if we change our minds, abort
the landing?
I must admit that heart
is more compelling than a brain
for baggage, and giving it away
a better idea than selling.