Writing, first thing, a list of items to be done.
Chosen to remember, chosen to execute.
Illuminating this day’s chores.

I see a black snake sliding down
a path he made ten minutes before.
Perhaps I am wrong.

Perhaps that path is older, maybe
ten years or even ten thousand, and he only does
what he was asked to do by ancestors.

At any rate it has been seen. He has
been seen. Or she has been seen.
It makes no difference to me, after all.

It makes no difference, either,
that I see a hummingbird hovering.
Sucks at a four o’clock bloom. Flits off quickly.

On to the next, and then the next.
The snake raises its head as the bird slips by.
I do not think they know each other.

I worry about the bills,
the nameless faces in offices
I will call upon to help fix the mess I’m in.

I will worry about the war in which I’m suddenly involved.
Fret about peace, about the clueless President
and his lackeys, about how my neighbors have gotten mean.

But the black snake moves on, paying it no mind.
The ruby-throated hummingbird moves on,
paying it no mind.

I put my head down and close my weary,
already exhausted eyes. Try to pay it no mind.
Let it go by: already they are memories of seeing everything

in a brief moment, a second of time, a slice of
something — our words can’t explain it, not at all.
Shrug it off, then. Go back to writing down bones of the day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T