Change your life

 

You must unwind

your life-not quite what

William Stafford wrote

or spoke in Portland, or

what Rilke meant,

to start

a poem at lunch, write on

a paper plate, brush aside

crumbs in search of

ingredients for a new kind

of bread, morsels to feed

the spirit, and find pesto

left over from lunch.

Since the crash, it’s like that –

can’t concentrate on the task

at hand – until something

grabs my attention and then

it wants nothing but

the clearest water, the deepest

longing of the heart,

the highest mountain,

a red-orange sunset,

these images, figments

of purity, all of this

only preparation-

not the journey itself.

It is time to get up

and go. Now.