I am surrounded by poetry

                            I AM SURROUNDED BY POETRY

I am surrounded by poetry
I will never write.

The old man down the block
with his droopy mustache
and the dog he used to walk, long dead now.
The particular shade of orange in the morning sky
and the wondrous pink as evening comes.
The down on the neck of a woman I loved once,
who never knew I loved her.
And her eggshell ears.
The bend of her slim elbow.
Her ears--I mentioned that already.
The leafy, illogical pattern of ice on my windshield
one January morning--
like something a chaos physicist
(how about a mixed metaphor!)
woukd have adored.
What smoke feels like in my lungs
after I inhale deeply on a cigarette.
The particular color of the eyes
of the crazy man I talked to and gave two dollars today.
My dreams--coming at me like a tsunami these days--
endless visits with old friends,
walking through amber when I need to run,
conversations with those long dead,
hard work to accomplish in less than no time.
The smell of skunk standing on our deck.
The taste of coffee ice cream.
The feel of the hair of my Puli dog.
The sight of a woman, walking fast,
staying in shape, fending off death,
by walking fast past my house.
Hearing anything by Mozart on the radio.
And just the way it feels to be inside my skin,
how I can count my bones,
if I would stand still long enough and count.
The many ways I think of death.

And there is no time, no time at all,
since I am growing older.
There is no time, no time at all,
to write the poems that surround me.

And what about the dimples my daughter has?
And the strange way new money looks.
And how my wine glass is empty?
And the wear on the 'n' on my keyboard?
And how the ringing in my ears is sometimes a sonata?
And what the night sky resembles?
And the air under my fingernails and the gaps between my teeth?
The sound of rain,, rain's smell, all of raing.

What is unworthy of a poem?
Nothing, so far as I can tell.

And I don't have the time.
Surrounded by poetry, I have no time to write.

1/30/06--jgb