Two Poems and a Piece of Prose

Dispirited While Packing My Books Away One Summer Morning, I Utilize Phrases From One That Was Destined For Fodder

By the Ming there were well overA thousand theorists of poetry.Some believed poems "look up intoVast space and continue nothing"(I saw a field full of empty snow).Others that poems were like"A lotus in first sunlight."Lotus after lotusInto the dark boxes.I looked up from packing,And continued packing.

A Spatula and Some Windex

Most of the time, I haven't had timeIn general, time has not been there to hold meFor much of my life, I haven't felt that I am special to timeI have rarely had time give me sound adviceI find myself clinging to time because I am afraid it will leaveI need time so much I worry about losing itI worry that time will abandon meWhen I feel time pulling away from me, I get desperateSometimes I am so worried about time I think I drive it awayI feel that time will take advantage of meI can't let my guard down in the presence of timeIt is only a matter of timeI am quite suspicious of timeI am usually on the lookout for time's ulterior motivesI don't fit into timeI'm fundamentally different from timeI'm a loner when it comes to timeI have a difficult time demanding that my rights be respected by timeI'm the one who usually ends up taking care of timeAm I a good person because I think of time more than myself?I am too self-conscious to show others how I waste timeI must make the best of time, yet I often accept second-bestTime must see me as uptight emotionallyI need a spatula and some Windex to deal with timeIf I can't reach time I become frustrated and give upI have rarely been able to stick to timeI don't have time to finishI don't have time to begin with

House Hunting

When we lived in the blue house we were happy. But it didn't have a porch or a fireplace, and we knew these things would make us happier. That was when we bought the yellow house with a porch and a fireplace, and we were happy in the summer sitting on our porch, and happy in the winter sitting in front of the fire, but we weren't happy in the kitchen or the bedroom or the living room of that yellow house, fall and spring were especially hard, when it was too cold to use the porch and too warm to build a fire. That was when we bought the white house, where we were happy in the kitchen and in the bedroom and in the living room, and we had a porch and a fireplace—having once had them we would never give them up. The porch was smaller than our first porch but we didn't mind a bit. The fireplace was larger, though, and even if the fire was roaring all the heat in the house went straight up the chimney and we began to actually shiver. We were so cold we put on our coats and went for a drive, we drove past the blue house and looked at it with nostalgia, we drove past the yellow house and got a lump in our throats, but not so big we couldn't swallow it. On our way home we passed a red house with no one in it, there was no For Sale sign but we decided to have a look anyway, we walked around the red house and peeked in all the windows, and there were a great many of them. So much light and privacy! The house was set back from the road and had an enormous yard behind it, it seemed to go on forever and then continue into the woods that bordered...