Pinned Noons

Waste is the term we use most
For the hours in which we do

Or seem to do . . . What? Breathe? Live?
Not much else, we sigh. The best

Hours of our lives, and we give
Them the same name as the one

We use for the worst of us.
Time can’t be fixed. The hours go

And we shoo them off, get back
To work, save the world, crush it.

If we don’t, we’re the ones crushed
With shame or guilt or sheer loss.

You can paint such hours. You can’t
Keep them, of course. So love them,

Or at least love to waste them.
All the noons when the sun crawled

As high as the time of year
Let it, and you were so bored

Or fixed on chores or the hard
Work of a saint in the world,

You could not stop it. You could
Have at least been glad in it.

You will long for it, that hour
Like a myth, that waste, that song.