COUNTING TO TWELVE AT WILLAMETTE PARK
first what i notice
is predictable
the water
second the wild
blackberries third
that they are ripe
fourth the hairs
on the backs
of my legs
fifth that i am still
clueless about how
to meditate well
sixth if i take
a picture of this
sunrise what i will remember
will be taking
the picture and not
how it was here
but if i don’t
then what will i have
to show for this seventh
i think i
am beginning
to meditate
maybe eighth love
is moving toward
the beloved
not waiting
to be moved
toward ninth
i am either ready
to begin for real
or for ten
i heard loving someone
with the same
problems
as you is statistically eleven
times more fatal to love
than loving alone
every year i have known
you we have counted
to twelve
in AA they told us
take what is useful
& leave the rest
but what of what
i brought
the wanting to
sit on this sunscorched
patch of grass
left to myself
before the tai chi group
& stroller-runners arrive
& understand
that it is you i have
been mourning over again
can i leave that too
—from Rattle #63, Spring 2019
__________
Linnea Nelson: “I came to love poetry very early in life, having parents whose love of the written word provided a constant source of imaginative play in our household. I won a blue ribbon at the North Dakota State Fair for a pretty awful poem at the age of eight, and never looked back. These days, poetry is one mode of transport I take on the long way through my unknowing.” (web)
