Responsibility is to take down its bright airy dictation…
For after tongue hanging humidity a cooler head prevails
And a glorious Sunday rolls out its high pressure breeze
At my writing desk I take out notes from the in-box
Nothing anybody would find interesting, like the one
About the heron spear-fishing toads out of our pond
As the nearly full moon and her companions Jupiter
And Saturn go down behind the western horizon
Just minutes before sunrise OR this grease smeared
Piece of cardboard with the words “timing belt”
To remind me that our 1997 Honda Accord
Station Wagon seems to be slipping OR this cryptic
Lavender scented post-it note that reads: “To be
With a woman who surrounds herself with birds”
Yes, an incomplete sentence but its evidence is apparent
In the avian air-force patrolling our yard while my wife
Picks asparagus in the garden. Nothing at all
Important here, but what’s this on the back of an auto
Parts receipt? Let’s see. Oh yeah, a suggestion to myself
On how to spend the afternoon: “Hang the hammock
In the mimosa tree.” When I look up and out the sliding
Glass door I see acres of mown fields waiting for the baler
But the farmer is in church and the quietude lends
Itself to meditation, so for a little boost of inspiration
I hit “Spirituals” on the Bose botton, out comes “On Children”
By Sweet Honey and the Rock. Oh my god. Turn it on.
Listen with me. I think of all our black and white children
Quarantined or marching in the streets; masked or
unmasked, brave or frightened. Can they make a better
world? Though Sweet Honey sings that I cannot go there,
(For their souls dwell in the place of tomorrow
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams)
I’m up dancing on my old ugly legs, streaming tears
What have we done? What have I done or not done?
I repeat the song a dozen times then discover
A scrap of paper stuck under the laptop:
If we live in the clouds
We have to take earth with us
*italicized lines: Billy Collins & Ysaye Barnwell/Kahlil Gibran & Mark Jarman
