Now we’re here
and what we thought we’d do
has been subsumed
by all the day’s particulars —
the cold,
the sun’s low angle
(bleak, oblique, but warming through the glass,)
the newly rising urgencies
and their disjointed rhythms —
times of waiting spaced between demanding tasks —
So we stay home
and move within the small circles,
try to settle in,
protect the center.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 7, 2013