let it lie still

atlantic beach . ann packard


wouldn't you say,

wouldn't you say: one day,

with a little more time or a little more patience, one might

disentangle for separate, deliberate, slow delight

one of the moment's hundred strands, unfray

beginnings from endings, this from that, survey

say a square inch of the ground one stands on, touch

part of oneself or a leaf or a sound (not clutch

or cuff or bruise but touch with finger-tip, ear-

tip, eyetip, creeping near yet not too near);

might take up life and lay it on one's palm

and, encircling it in closeness, warmth and calm,

let it lie still, then stir smooth - softly, and tendril by tendril unfold, there on one's hand ... one might examine eternity's

cross-section

for a second, with slightly more patience, more time for reflection?

a.s.j. tessimond. 1934