Today

Today

Today, home is a cottage this morning.

I draw the curtain, lay out strange dishes,

survey the dear unbelievable mess, my papers sprawled

amidst chair shawls, bird houses, and the everywhere sea shells.

After Portuguese bread and coffee, I search for my poem

like a creature with eight eyes and almost no sight

but it does not come.  Still, I am so happy, so content

in this unaccustomed solitude,  thirty points higher

on any scale of satisfaction.  I stuff my knapsack

with the day’s simple needs and walk to the beach,

wade through the low tide.  A young man shares a gift

with me—a moon snail, gently cradled in his hand.  I decline

to hold it, my only regret of the day.   Later,  I step

Into the garden’s evening and she takes me back so tenderly.

I sit,  let the evening come, let the poem come.

                                                                        

                                                                            peggy prescott