I would tell you to find what matters.

You’re looking at the gum on the bottom

of your shoe as if someone put it there

on purpose this 23rd of August, hot as

the black top of the fairgrounds before

the harvest comes limping in like a

parched cornucopia doing its best. That

walk by the pond this morning? When

you were attempting to leave something

behind you like a puff of smoke? You

might as well have been dragging blocks

by a rope tied to your waist, your free

arms giving the illusion of movement with

the poor man’s anchor or suicide weight

scraping up the dirt erratically in your trail.

You can’t predict the path of the

haphazard, dependent on the quality of the

ground as to whether a memorable mark is

left. Penance can’t be paid by exertion,

the silence of dawn broken by the same

bird insisting that everything is well.