Fallow - Oct 21 2023

 

Fallow

Oct 21 2023

It's twilight, as I look up

from the open book

resting on my lap.

I feel befuddled, at first

to see the day

already near its end

and wondering where it went;

the to-do list

still where I left it,

easy chair warm.

Then disgust

at my aimlessness

and self-indulgent drift.

We are told to be productive.

That time is short

life a gift

waste a mortal sin.

And clearly

my inner Puritan disapproves.

But is it profligate

or somehow debauched

to spend a day imagining?

Nothing unconscionable

and no harm done,

but nothing to show for it, as well;

except, perhaps, a poem

a walk with the dogs

some puttering on and off.

Like the flaneur

out for a leisurely stroll

   —  walking the streets

and slipping in and out,

open to delight

and hoping for surprise   —

there was no plan

no goal

no rush.

Time is money, they say,

they yet I don't feel impoverished

or somehow deprived.

Idle hands

the early bird

the head of the line,

but isn't it written

that the first shall be the last?

And make hay while it shines.

So what now

with the sun having set

and night beginning to fall?

I think of rest

instead of busyness.

Of fields

left to themselves

replenishing their soil.

And of how we only value

what we choose to measure

and how we make that choice.