THE DAY BETWEEN

Considering with weary heart and jaded eye
all the stacks and racks and knicks and knacks, 
that loom left over and left undone
from yesterdays and yesterweeks
last month, last season,
even all a lifetime’s matters 
still requiring answers and corrections and response… 

Before this week is out I know
decisions must be made, 
uncertainties confronted and if possible allayed, 
anxieties faced down, potentially delayed;
expectations settled–mine and those of others
poised for disappointment and dismay
or vanishing as imaginings 
never truly dire… 

And then, seen dim like creatures that lurk
as slowly they emerge from dark and murk, 
the tasks, demands, the urgencies,
the next steps of projects still in play, 
consequences of choices and decisions. 
of commitments made to make them go away… 
I know they’re out there, to be dealt with
with whatever wit and skill
and luck that will
in the moment be mine, 
or maybe not…

Today, though, I will walk
the ground between
the promises of yesterday
and insistances of the coming day.
Today I will watch the world shine
apart from my concerns
with its skies and weathers, 
I’ll revel in its flowers,
in its pretty rocks and fallen feathers, 
and I will give no thought to all the rest
or gnaw over what is worst or best…
I will listen for the birds, the wind, 
the music of the spheres, and know
the earth beneath my feet
is not belabored by my cares, 
but shares its energies, its life,
its simple beingness with me,
expecting nothing…

This is the day I gift myself…
This is the day between.