The pole is bolted onto fresh concrete,
its height about four feet, its color black.
A year of paving work upon the street
has left us with this column in our track.
Will it remain when all the work’s complete?
It’s shaped like a pedestrian attack,
a stanchion to restrict, divide, retard.
Imagining utility is hard.
Though years advance more quickly now,
and change is rare to find,
I comprehend in manners how
to exercise my mind.
A lot of it’s vicarious
and much is self-assigned
(there’s nothing that’s nefarious;
I’m neither deaf nor blind).
I practice language in my tongue,
with Spanish intertwined;
I exercise and dwell among
the sweets of humankind.
I’ve known some individuals quite nice,
but silently pathetic and reserved,
as if their parentage did not entice
initiative, as if they were unnerved
by wounded mothers, loving at a price,
or weakened dads from stalwart humor swerved.
It may be such producing sad result –
a passive undeclarative adult.
Nobody knows how long the fates have spun
the thread. Perhaps such ignorance is best.
Imagine certainty about the run –
then hubris blooms and twists. I never guessed
I’d be here now – foreknowledge would have done
me wrong. For sure I tread no mythic quest,
and all too frequently fatigue appears,
but I anticipate fifteen more years.
I find it difficult to notice sights,
although I’m not as senseless as the folk
I walk among. Perhaps it’s youth’s delights
distracting, but I often yearn to poke
a back or interrupt a gaze at phone
with “Pay attention,” not barked stridently
but low, suggesting in a placid tone
a dozen miracles to hear and see.
A padlock turns its back and grabs my eye.
A light inside I didn’t mark before
(I think) commands my consciousness to try
to collate ambience and gather more.
But even so, on streets I often tread,
I fail to note black wires overhead.
Employing several others as I plied
my accidental trade, I only sought
integrity and honest effort tried
with their momentum, for I never thought
I’d find a twin. I paid a wage and taught
a bit, but each selected their own how.
Reviewing, I approve of what was wrought,
and may engage another to endow.
Although her father said the world consists
of followers and leaders, what’s revealed
in time is that another sort exists:
the neither. Self-employment’s course appealed.
She set a shingle out and plied her way,
and used her brain and diligence enough
to earn for a small group sufficient pay,
and granting latitude was nothing tough.
Besides herself, providing means to eat
for half a dozen others, she arrived
in 40 years at leisure’s windowed door.
And lately she’s considering a meet
donation to aid one who’s largely thrived
already, but deserves a bigger oar.
I’ll be a little late today, to post.
That’s insignificant as it can be.
No obligation motivates – at most,
it’s just a morning task I set for me.
It’s chill today, for April, and I see
in fireplace warm flames of yellow-red.
I’m home from now till 2 or even 3,
so comfortable I may return to bed.
Accustomed now to months of winter drought,
we sadly sat with minimal surprise
through most of January’s weeks without
good rain to follow New Year’s stormy skies.
For vernal dryness none of us felt doubt,
but April soaks arrive to catalyze
our gardens and to irrigate our views.
The weather’s weird but lately welcome news.
I’ve overloaded Mondays recently.
What used to be a rest is growing jammed
with crunches, bins, and print activity.
Add shopping, and I feel a little slammed.
There’s verse to write and edit, and lately
a dose of weekday prose has been programmed.
Complaining is a futile, silly role,
especially since I am in control.
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