October Sunday Morning Poem

Stark winter-like light,
a little after 10:00,
low TV auditory
from the bedroom;
the dog yelps
outside.

I should go for a walk
along the creek bottom.
I have two to choose from.
One is up Dry Creek.
That canyon is filled
mostly with red maple.
I could do that.
It isn't far,
far less than a city block.

Or there is Chalk Creek.
That canyon is filled
mostly with yellow cottonwood.
I could do that also.
It isn't far either,
perhaps a city block.

But what I really have to do is
pee.

I will do that first,
I don't think my body
will really give me much
choice.

The urgent need to be
present here now
almost takes precedence
over the writer's bizarre need
to record nearly everything.

I get it though.
It's really about all I do fully get.

How amazing
the right word (or even the wrong one)
looks when it first hits
the white page.

Have you ever
noticed winter light
on the side of the most
pedestrian of buildings--
the dark shadow of an electric
meter box on a white concrete block
building in an alleyway?

I believe I have.
Many times.
I think I'm seeing one
in Galveston, Texas.
The north side,
near the channel,
across the tracks,
not too far
from the docks &
the racket of
seagulls.

A white bird
on hard
blue-black
water

is punctuation
of sorts.

Silence
allows
seagulls
from beyond now
to still for a moment
the call
to the immediate.

Perhaps
a poem
is just
stopping
to notice
a spark

a fleck
dark
or
light

and then
we move on
with whatever
need life presses
against us.

Poetry inverts that:
need presses life
against us
against the clamor
and raucous of impetuous
now.