Sputterpub's Blog

It never stops. As long as I’m alive,
I think there will be labors tossed my way,
from challenges that power me to strive
or sob, to complications that dismay.
No sooner do I X things off my list
than some recur and others rise to twist
my wish to have work done, to relegate
myself to laze with nothing on my plate.

Apparently as long as I exist
there will be work, repeating or acute.
From daily chores to ills that constitute
a crisis, calls to toil will persist.
The best that I can do, absent delay,
is maybe clear the balance of today.

Old sidewalks crack and buckle near big trees
and over land that trembles during quakes,
so pathways that should let us stroll with ease
can be disruptive. Here’s a ledge that makes
a rising step, and there’s a slab upthrust
(Sequoia sempervirens isn’t small).
I treat concrete like hiking trails – I must
attend to how I step or I could fall.

But sometimes I misstep and start to trip –
I have to stutter forward then a pace
or three, head leading to maintain my frame.
Recovering, my impulse is to whip
my face around to cavil at the place,
as if the faulty sidewalk were to blame.