What It Was Like

You want to know
You have more time,
But you can’t know
You’d had more time
‘Til you’ve lived it.

What Can’t Be Found

I have seen these poems.

Cold thought, cold as lakes

Too deep to freeze. Deer

Browse through the scrub oaks

And old snow, while wind

Walks the slopes, old man

Who has lost the thread

Of a plot he knew,

Was once sure he wrote,

Or at least thought of,

Or at least had dreamed,

But no. He should go

Back down to the town

And moan at folks there.

Up here, the deer know

They need to eat. Plots

Line the floors of lakes

With bones. And those poems.

Strokes Laid but Not Laid Down

Who would we be, for real? Hey?

No, for real. Who would we be?

You want more time. Get an hour.

Just one free hour, to start with.

Don’t do one damned thing with it.

Don’t pray. Don’t watch a show. Don’t

Try to find your mind. Don’t soak,

Sip, tune in, draw, write, or think

Too much. Don’t treat don’ts as rules.

These are hints. Stand or sit. Stare

Or shut your eyes, but the trick

Is to not have tasks or plans

Or things to do with your hands.

You’ll be bored. You must be bored.

There’s a huge blank chunk of time

Curled in an hour with your mind.

Save one hour for the hour’s sake.

Set a bell, a watch, a clock

But not where you can see it.

Now wait. Wait. Sit on your hands

If you have to. Wait for it.

Feel it? It sits with you. It’s

Huge. At first you can’t stand it.

Then you think the clock has stopped,

The bell’s on mute, you did not

In fact set your watch. This hour,

It has to be up by now,

Right? It’s not. The strokes lie down

That you did not lay down. Paint

Dries. The light shifts in the sky.

Who are you now, hey? For real,

Who are you now? You’re an hour.

The same hour you could have napped

In a blink, walked in a daze,

Lost in a good book. The best

Way not to waste time’s to waste.

Schmutz

Spots, specks, smears, daubs, prints
Left on the glass—pets
Or a child, damp hands—

When the sun hits them
Just so, you know what
They are, just the facts,

The clues left for you
In the past, by past
Change. Now, glass means things—

The child was this high.
The pet was a cat.
They went out and in.

The child might have teased
The cat. There might have
Been a few hard bumps.

So, that’s your life, friend,
Not this tale, that door.
The dirt’s what you’re left,

Each smudge life made. Here
Is a thing that was.
Wipe it off; it’s gone.

It was not. You weren’t,
All the clues stripped, glass
Cleaned bare in the sun.

Might as well know this.
Might as well like flecks.
They’re what you have left,

The tale that goes blank,
That no one could tell.
Be glad it snags light.

Sum Life

It’s time we ask what we’ve done,
What have you done with us?
Not as much as you might think,

For good or ill—the Earth spins
As it did when you were born,
And the Sun is still so-so.

You sprawled out. You killed a lot,
Ate a lot, wedged lots of waste
In the gears for germs to eat.

You might make it off the rock.
You might die out. You might stew.
You will leave a lot of us,

Have to use a lot of us,
Have spats through the lot of us,
Come what may for what you do.

What have you done? We speak through
You now as you speak through us.
Thank you for our house of dust.

Cell Walls

Death of a speck,
Gone in a sec—
The bright white streak
Of a false star

Trailed in the lens.
Why can’t our eyes
See more? Will they,
One day? Up high,

Free of life’s grasp,
Free of cell walls,
Not forced to sieve
Most of the world

From all its fine
Hints, tints, and trails?
No, no. They won’t.
We see at all

Thanks to cell walls,
Chains life linked up
Right from life’s start.
We’ve had to make

These tools that see
More world for us,
Tools that can’t die—
Last hope for us.