Curled up on the couch in the cold,
I press keyboarding fingers listlessly to lettered squares,
thinking of friends on couches, in meetings,
on planes, at work,
everywhere but here.
"Don't abandon the here
and now," people say, cheerfully cold,
diagnosing me: I'm unwilling to work
to turn circles to squares,
to ask God to bring heartfulness out of watery meetings.
Surely true. But I'm tired of new meetings,
of crestfalls after hoping that here
at last are the boring squares,
of the inevitable moment of cold
wet feeling that every fresh beginning is yet more work.
I don't know if I'd even want it to work
to "be intentional," plan earnest meetings,
march down the salt-filmed street like it isn't even cold.
I'm too chest-weighted. I want them here,
All sitting knee-huggingly in Sunday knots and weeknight squares.
The happy girl squares
Her shoulders, then bends to work
In the seedbed lovingly dug for her. But I carve a cavern here.
Stalagmite words and echoing eyes have blue-black meetings,
Watering pin-sprouting pods that curl in the cold.
In cold town squares, we huddle up for meetings.
Everything's more work out here, but we can't talk inside.