Housework

things are gathering dust:

a mountain of must to sort,

slates to clean, a mean pile

of work to make this smooth

clock tick

 

but we have time, a garden art,

in these few hearts planting seeds

where the world’s wind will

snap no branch, let spirits

grow sky-straight

 

it’s not too late:

a touch of forbearance

at the end of the world

goes down cozy as coffee

and heartening as wine,

true-vine compassion

that forgives this mess

 

Moon

A sea-storm of cloud over just-dark:

brightness beneath, bats whispering

the air out of reach, breath held

 

breeze rattles black cherry

and the moon-rim rises, pulls clear

quivering against blue-black

 

Something more than five hundred

full moons I’ve been alive and why

this one night it transfixes me—

 

How many of those hundreds have I

completely ignored, blind to looking,

blinder to not be transfixed?

 

If it were ten times brighter, twenty

times, would I not soon forget it

just the same? Take all for granted:

 

bat-wing silence, leaves unfurling

in daylight, the rise and fall of waves,

countless fruits dropping to the ground

 

What good is it to notice the fruit

if I don’t look up to the tree? What good

is it to be transfixed by the moon

 

in a sea-storm cloud with you in bed

waiting for me to lower the blinds?

 

Inspired by last night’s moon-sky and a little interchange I had with Meg at Pigspittle, Ohio about Noticing.