WHAT WE DO WHEN THE WORLD
  DOESN’T DEMAND WE DO ANYTHING

 
I scribble a line on a piece of paper,
maybe a stanza too—for future reference.
I may use none of them any time soon,
as the lines and stanzas that have gotten backed up

can attest to—orphans with a home
and a hope that one day I will employ them.
I notice a woman in a motorized wheelchair,
her dog keeping pace, stepping quite elegantly.



   THE WORLD WILL SURELY END


while I’m finishing a poem,
the last line smoothed in like butter
on toast.
The day won’t be glorious,
but it will be sweet,
the sun out
and just a nip of chill in the air.
I’ll be pulled
out the window, sucked
up into the clouds and going from there,
joining so many others,
what traffic!
I often wondered where we would ultimately
wind up, such dreams I had.
And now
I’ll know, I’ll know if any of them were true.