An Uneven Day

What an uneven day
it has been already.
Rose late and made coffee
before I showered 
because priorities
and rituals must be
honored to make things work
as they should

and now I’m sitting here 
with a pile of notes and
something that purports to be 
the start of the greatest poem
I’ve ever written and seeing that
it’s clearly on its way to being 
more crap than canon. Which
hurts more because
when it comes to all of my work
those may not be 
contradictions.

Later on someone
will call out of the blue
to say, can you
come help me move?
and inside I’ll hem and haw
but get up grudgingly and go
because I have a station wagon

and while it’s no pickup truck
priorities and rituals
must be honored.

When we’re done
one apartment will be empty
and another will be full
and I will come home
to my own that is both full
and empty at once.

Then I’ll take a second look
at the Work I left behind.
I’ll sigh and light a pipe
and after that close my eyes on the day
hoping to find myself tomorrow

back on the winding road
that leads from the bones
of one uneven day
to the next one,

where there is still
possibility
to be chased regardless
of faint chance of snatching it,
because priorities and
rituals must be observed,
even in the absence of honor.