You can fill your head with
boxes, with sheets and blankets
pulled from shelves, and musty things
that skulked around for years
You can fill your mind with tasks —
they hum along in orderly succession,
they stretch to fill the whole allotted space,
they are important, and they give
a sense of usefulness, efficiency —
they have a certain paper satisfaction
But where is the poem in all this?
Where are the gaps, the permeable surfaces
to put down roots,
draw up the crosswise meaning?
It’s here, apparently,
though yesterday I couldn’t find it —
after I stopped, I could see it —
the rhythm, the breath of it,
the why.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 2, 2019
