Though some folks with a wicked
sense of humor decided to name
their stretch of Arizona desert

Nothing, and though today on someone’s
humorous calendar has been dubbed
Nothing Day, I can’t designate

even one of the increasingly fewer days
that lie before me as nothing. I hope
to have many quiet days ahead with

no particular thing pressing on me,
but let there never be a Nothing Day.
And if I imagine that there is, let me

take myself outside for a walk down
the block to witness so much Something
in the seemingly ordinary.

Like the fact that the sun is shining
on winter-bare trees busily preparing
foliage that will soon pop out,

days when I will again find myself
marveling at the cycle of things
that die as other things ready

themselves to be born, gloriously
“ta-da!”ing their way into the world,
this world, our world, right here,

regenerating without human
interference—miraculous, really—
not nothing at all.