in praise of finish(ed) lines

we inky finger
tappety-key the words
across these snow drifts
day after day after day after
………………………………..day,
even as the world is ending
even though our kids are home
even though we’re torn, and tumbled
even though the world is closed.

we scribble to the tune
of crickets,
night sky. heartbeats.
wandered veins, roadmaps
to
……………..(nowhere)
somewhere, soon.

we mumble to the moon,
and sing syllables off
key. we braille our fingers
loose to trees. we listen
for that iambic breeze.

we start with the all the energy
and the passion and the how
and the why. halfway through,
we stumble and wonder
what the hell we were thinking,
what the hell are we doing
here,
especially this
…..(crazy)
……………..(crumbled)
………(chaos)
year.

we fear we nouned too much
or verbed too few
or loosed the same words
in a different order
one too many times
or rhymed, or un
-rhymed, or shouted
when we should have
whispered soft. we send
a few aloft, knowing they
carry grace, afloat. we crush some
under tired thumb,
hope they might later
make wine.

time
moves more
slowly than any other year,
but we smudge and sting
and stay in this thing,
struggling for that one last
line to fall the way
we weighed it.

and with one last battle
-worn syllable-sigh, we
            (drop, full stop and)
breathe

……………………we made it.

 

..
in april, we poem.
this year the month felt longer than ever. happy to be done. in may, we rest.