I finished my to-do list, it’s 9 a.m.
What now? The hours loom before me,
an endless stretch of open road
no signposts, no direction.

Just silence and empty moments stripped
of barking, no sighing but my own.
In earlier times, I wished for quiet,
praised the God of stillness,

longed for a single untouched hour.
The kids were dunking basketballs
and screeching their hurrahs,
the dogs barked at every passerby.

Now I stand in the aftermath—
an emptied nest, no wings stirring,
no small lives brushing against mine,
only my own thoughts and the stir of memory