Six Notebooks

I can’t to the news, not

Today, perhaps not any-

More, to the unbridled hate

The justification of terrible-

ness, the, all of it and

I stand agog, bound by my eyes

To the slow-motion wreck of

Anyway, I make coffee, check the

Plants for new leaves, growth

And the jar with the cutting to see

If the roots are yet sufficient, a-

nother day or two I think

Listen to the electric kettle, grind

Beans, measure the tablespoons into

The filter of the Bodum, pour the

Water slowly, let it settle, read

More of Berryman’s selected letters consider-

ing throwing my smartphone and its dis-

content into the Mississippi, pluck

thine eyes, he said, but since I wish

still to read pages and pages of Letters

better to pluck the phone

The news, oh boy, and the weather

Will not change, it is wind-

mills tilting against so per-

chance coffee, a letter, the songs

of an Eithopian nun and

nothing more, away, away

to the waters

and the wild.

PWS 3032.05.03