Evident

Why do I keep putting everything away?

I need to be distracted by what matters,

to leave the Seferis poems open to the

one about the old man and the river,

to put my unfinished woodblock of

the heron lifting before the waterfall

on my desk, shavings and all, where I

can chisel and stroke once or twice as

I pass by, to set the journal I travel

with by my bed, open to the secret I

still haven’t figured out that I heard

in the halyard slapping its mark on

the mast in Sausalito last month. I

need to start more things than I can

finish, to leave the twine of my feelings

around the house where you can find

them and ask, “What is this?” How

can I fear there is not enough time

when the moments that have changed

my life have only taken a moment?