A week ago, an easy week commenced.
Except for Tuesday, nothing filled my plate.
I felt no claims I’d rather have dispensed
with: nothing asked of me that couldn’t wait.
I might have learned how to procrastinate,
but I don’t have the patience to delay.
My jones for self-esteem won’t let me wait.
I lasted but two days in slack array.
If I assumed this posture every night,
my knees might lock; my power bill might soar.
But after being out since noon, the sight
of hearth and feel of warmth are goodness more
than candy, presents, even candlelight.
I gaze at hand-knit socks, and in my core
I murmur thanks and couch them in this poem,
positioned after commerce soft at home.
Attention to some inattention now
becomes a treatment I prescribe today.
The recent past implies I’m losing how
to survey home before I go away.
Appliance on, a bolt unthrown, convey
the message reinforced to some degrees
that though at large I’m managing okay,
I have to look too long to find my keys.
We saw the tented house across the street
three days ago, when heading with a friend
to lunch. The draping figures in defeat
of residential insects. To defend
one’s home from infestation’s now complete
disruption; human dwellers must contend
at distance, while they let a toxin catch.
Today I note the silvergrassy match.
It doesn’t rise to OCD, to check
again that tasks, on leaving home, are done.
I never left an iron on, to wreck
my place, but every now and then I’ll run
back to find power use or, what the heck,
a door unlocked? So most the time there’s none
amiss, but yesterday I let transpire
two hours out with heater still afire.
The office afternoon today is all
my calendar’s recording for this week.
The uncommitted hours form a sprawl
like downy carpeting toward what I seek.
I’ve half a dozen days, to overhaul
precisely nothing. Maybe I’ll bespeak
a gentle outline for the coming year,
to help me blaze a novel habit here.
My dream was cinematic Thursday night.
It showed at least a middle and an end.
Protagonistically, I did all right,
and as I dawned awake I caught a trend.
I’d paused in dream to give time passing might.
I leaned to learn, commenced to comprehend
I needed young a softer attitude.
If he’d survived, I’d give him gratitude.
Five households have to dump our garbage here.
At times abuse can dig beneath my skin,
especially at move-out time of year
or Yule, which is the tide that we’re now in.
Today I lift the lid and see – oh dear,
a mass of bags and cardboard fill the bin.
Recyclable, compostable – a drag.
I move it, but I note the neighbor’s tag.
On Christmas Day, midday, I traveled east,
from company and glee to solitude.
I felt the love but, still, to be released,
released in me sweet thanks quite unpursued.
The sky shone blue although the chance increased
for storm. I walked the empty streets and viewed
with pleasure solo legs to my domain.
Ten minutes home, the heavens loosed hard rain.
It seems to energize her to declare.
Assertion and contention are her way,
at least with me – and I suspect it’s fair
assuming that with others, she will say
as strongly, and excuse herself, that there
is reason – she’s a character. But hey –
her loud mistakes give neither of us joy.
My caring calls do little but annoy.
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