Kicking Sand in the Face of Indolence

It sits, like a wet cotton ball.
Covered with dust, hair,
and false starts.

Hours have dropped from the clock,

the insolent wind has carried them away.
But time still goes, and goes, and goes.

The cotton ball? It lies, it lies,

it stays put. Festered. Festering.
Willful, but left without device.

What’s been muddied in the mind of it?

How many tires have squealed by
and yet it does not flinch?

It is restless, waiting for a wave to crash,

to wash away the washed-up rhetoric
which convinced it it had nothing left to say.

To leave its dead crab countenance

on the shore of this black-ink sea—
And my brand new feet come by

and kick on it the white sands.

To cover it. To bury it.
To see it dead, and something new arise.


(From the book Kairos)