When you paused for a poem
it could reshape the day
you had just been living.

—Naomi Shihab Nye
from “Every day as a wide field, every page”

•••

As you move about the place you call home,
lines come to you unbidden,
snippets of conversation remembered
or imagined as your soapy hands
massage the spoons,
rinse the morning’s cup.

Bits of a nursery rhyme your
grandmother recited to your little self
roll through as you pull wet clothes
from the washer, heft them into the dryer,
or, in good weather, pin them to the line
outside to flap like prayer flags
under a sunny breeze.

Lyrics from songs, some you haven’t heard,
much less sung, in ages, leap in the attic
of the mind where music lives
as you take up the rake, humming,
your shoulders embracing the swing
and the pull.

On a walk, at the grocery store,
allow the poetry of the everyday
to reshape it. Tune into the shoosh
of the last of the leaves crunchy underfoot.
Admire the winter citrus stacked just so
in the produce aisle—the oranges,
the lemony yellows, the particular
limey greens.

Pause. Lean in and inhale.
Let the lines come to you.

They might be yours.