I almost fall asleep in the backyard
lying on the rattan couch looking up
at layers – leaves, clouds, Sun, blue heaven.
His poem enters and takes me away,
then drops me hard onto my life.
The poem I reference is “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota” by James Wright, from his Collected Poems. Most of it has pleasant images – bronze butterfly, green shadow. cowbells in the distance, a field of sunlight – but after all that, his final line is “I have wasted my life.” The poem did enter my mind as I almost napped in the sunlight, feeling somewhat disappointed that I wasn’t accomplishing anything significant that afternoon. Was it just that afternoon?
Writing the Day 