Author’s note: This one’s from way back; it’s a poem I wrote in high school, and I fear it rather shows. But I published a blog post recently about the importance of paying attention and it reminded me of this poem. So here it is, for your enjoyment.

Regrets

If I could have these moments to do over again,
a life time to repeat,
feet retracing steps in a new/familiar way.
My beginning would become my end
along the same path,
leading forward into the darkness.

If I had these years to try again,
I’d want to spend more time
just remembering, just watching and noticing
as the time slips by.
I spent so many years,
head down as I hurried, walking briskly
from one place to another –
I forgot to look and listen.

My eyes saw pictures in the concrete beneath my feet
because the same old grey/black surface
spotted with old chewing gum, threaded with mossy crevices
was endless – neverchanging.
My feet walked on because I demanded it of them,
but there was no wonder,
no momentary pause, eye fixed on some sight in the distance
captivated.

I did not realize or comprehend
the daily beauty I was missing:
the wheeling bird I did not look up to see,
the petals tumbling from spring-time cherry trees,
the way the cat across the road looked up as I passed by,
and the smile of the woman on the street.
I’d cherish these moments from the beginning,
if I had mine to make over.

It happens on an airplane —
metal bullet hurtling at 30,000 feet,
temporary home to a mere 200 souls.
It happens as the wheels lift off, as the
houses, roads, and people fall away,
shrinking as I rapidly gain

perspective.

It happens on the bus at the intersection
and as we trundle down the street.
It happens as the people beyond my window
jog and laugh and race and as some of them
shuffle along, stumbling over
a distraction of cell phones, clutched
in outstretched hands.

It happens in a singular moment as
I hold their stories, cupped in the cradle of my palms
as I pass unseen beyond
the screen of window’s glass.

It happens in the dark, at night
when I find the thud of my heartbeat
distracting as it thumps and stutters
in the cage of my chest.
It happens as each moment passes
one after each and every other
to the rhythm of my heart’s beat chanting
now and now and now and —

It happens when I close my eyes,
breathe in deep,
and marvel at my own fleeting presence
and comprehend my utter

insignificance.

The summer’s sunshine fades — sinking
into dusky pinks and gold that
glimmer into dusty motes which linger
in the air. Lazy, settling
floating, drifting until—

dis-rupted

by a curlicue of air that
reaches in through open window to stir
licking into the hazy swelter
of the room, still smothered by
the mid-day’s heat.

The breeze caresses, beckons.
Swirling dust motes into tendrils
like fingers: reaching, calling
in a drifting dance
to sway me from repose.

I linger at the window,
shimmer in the last golden ray
of rapidly fading day.
Linger as gold gives way to ochre, then
to rust. And then to dusky gray.

There’s night come swooping in my
open window. Her cold fingers rasp against
bared arms — raise goosebumps
and set me loose as I am

set adrift

tangled in the rush of cool air
that whispers in my window.