Speckles

Inspired by a quote from Gary Snyder’s book, “The Practice of the Wild”

Back when I had time to write only

poems, I’d spend the speckled parts of

one day reading the thing that was penned

by inspiration in the shower – changing

a word or letter or comma, here or there – till

the thing was quite fixed over by day’s end, and it was

all done in those flecks of time, for I had all

the daily vacuuming to do, the black and white

kitchen tiles to mop – and many full meals –

and much washing and bed making too, for

nothing was short changed or skipped – and  

yet I wrote the poems – about housewifery, most

of all, for that was my vantage, and the seeing of

speckles and dapples and shine even when

the dull tedium added up to nothing, everyone knows

housework has that reputation, must be

shined and polished daily, and even then, it’s at

best a pot or pan, window, mirror – face it . . .

to most.  I’ve never had the authority

to call it more or make it sound

like a way to polish one’s life, or to live in the

present moment, or to say it was the

“highest calling of my 24 hours,”

which I read in a book the other day – the highest calling

of the 24 hours, and so I laughed to think that   

herding children into a carpool van, or shifting numbers in

major business plans, or directing people in the role of

boss or dictator – that it’s all the same, the most important

work of the hour, he said. 

I have struggled to think the same, make myself feel

more than I was, all in the practice of making dull shine;

I have made the black squares blacker

and the white squares . . . whiter.  It’s the practice of the

kitchen floor shine, albeit bent over, and

knowing dullness and routine and the hour.

It is not lofty work, not even to me, the one writing

this poem at the hour – and I have no authority

to make it sound so, not from this inner vantage, still bent

over this or that – it is a practice, to stay alert,

a path of sorts, to walk or skip or drag the feet

along black and white kitchen tiles – everyday, the hours . . .

in spite of dingy

windows and carpets and walls – days when

everything is cast as shadow and blur – always the practice of

finding speckles and sparkles to keep one stepping,

one more day, another chance

to practice it, to get it right, to make the

black tiles blacker, a comma act brighter, or white tiles  

whiter.