Poetry Vault: Sometimes

By Zach Hively

​I wrote last week about being very, very busy. I lean into the busyness for effect, but also, it’s true that I have been feeling very, very busy.

Or more precisely, it is true that I have been feeling the pressures of there being a great deal to do—because there is a great deal to do.

And no matter how much of it I do, there will always be more to do.

The Great Escape from this vicious cycle—for me, anyway—is embracing the absolute freedom in knowing that I cannot get everything done no matter what I do, so all I can do is what I can do, and that does NOT mean stuffing every pore of my life’s spongecake with Things To Do.
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No matter how tempting that is, this stuffing of the spongecake.
No matter how sweetly those Things To Do threaten my brain if they don’t get done.
No matter what.

This is why dogs are magical. They force me back into the things that actually matter, which is far more stepping outside the door and somewhat less SEO optimization.

This is also why poetry matters.

To all the people I encounter (and you are many) who confess you don’t know how to read poetry, I want to offer this: Read it slowly. This is not a words-per-minute game. Poetry is a bonbon, best eaten slowly, allowing for a moment of delight and recognition with what’s inside.
Frankly, I don’t “know how to read poetry” either. I either feel something, or I don’t. And this is okay! You can’t possibly eat every chocolate in the shop. And when I find a poem, or a piece of one, that makes me feel something, whatever, anything at all—there’s a piece of myself reflected there. My own taste.

No one says they don’t know how to eat candy. There’s just candy you want to savor, and candy you want to guzzle, and candy you want to throw back into the bucket on Halloween.
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Same goes for poetry. Same goes for anything--especially the Things That Don’t Need Done, But We Do Them Anyway.

And with that a poem

​Sometimes
 
Sometimes all I need
to remember myself
is a nighthawk slicing
 
across my map,
a light rain masking
what time it is,
 
a warm bagel and
an americano sitting
me down, a dog
 
climbing over
my lap, rosemary
bushing in a pot.