Monday Inspiration

This poem inspired me today—made me gasp, yes, that’s how I feel!

Poem on a Line by Anne Sexton

“We Are All Writing God’s Poem”

by Barbara Crooker

 

Today, the sky’s the soft blue of a work shirt washed

a thousand times. The journey of a thousand miles

begins with a single step. On the interstate listening

to NPR, I heard a Hubble scientist

say, “The universe is not only stranger than we

think, it’s stranger than we can think.” I think

I’ve driven into spring, as the woods revive

with a loud shout, redbud trees, their gaudy

scarves flung over bark’s bare limbs. Barely doing

sixty, I pass a tractor trailer called Glory Bound,

and aren’t we just? Just yesterday,

I read Li Po: “There is no end of things

in the heart,” but it seems like things

are always ending — vacation or childhood,

relationships, stores going out of business,

like the one that sold jeans that really fit —

And where do we fit in? How can we get up

in the morning, knowing what we do? But we do,

put one foot after the other, open the window,

make coffee, watch the steam curl up

and disappear. At night, the scent of phlox curls

in the open window, while the sky turns red violet,

lavender, thistle, a box of spilled crayons.

The moon spills its milk on the black tabletop

for the thousandth time.