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?