July 12, 2011

poem for night owls
 
This strange, unbearable stillness, and the mind a quirk
of intersections – what to eat for breakfast, how to navigate
July, when to say yes or no and to whom, the search for good work
amid the clatter of money and time, illness and damage and longing and…wait,
a memory from childhood comes stinging back, and another
soft as a feather duster sweeping the room clean. This is no time
to attempt meaning, to draw borders around ideas or play mother
hen to fantasy, pecking it into shape. In these miasmic hours, let the grime
meld with disorder, and pour the honey of it on your heart until you ache
with the beauty of your own aliveness, until you thank God you’re still awake.