Peace offering

A perfect autumn day, 70F/21C, sunshine, a scatter of gold leaves among long shadows. Peace in the city streets in this moment. Beauty, green and gold.

I am trying not to think too much about the impending presidential election. I have some radical friends who say it won't make any difference, but I don't share that belief. I think it makes a very great difference. Thinking and thinking--

Thinking and worrying, the beautiful fall day, and then this poem.


Because These Failures Are My Job

This morning I failed to notice the pearl-gray moment
just before sunrise when everything lightens;
failed also to find bird songs under the grinding of garbage trucks,
and later, walking through woods, to stop thinking, thinking,
for even five consecutive steps. Then there was the failure to name
the exact shade of blue overhead, not sapphire, not azure, not delft,
to savor the soft squelch of pine needles underfoot.
Later I found the fork raised halfway to my mouth
while I was still chewing the last untasted bite,
and so it went, until finally, wading into sleep's thick undertow,
I felt myself drift from dream to dream,
forever failing to comprehend where I am falling from or to:
this blurred life with only moments caught
in attention's loose sieve --
tiny pearls fished out of oblivion's sea,
laid out here as offering or apology or thank you

--Alison Luterman.