It’s taking my time
spending it ruminating
and recording
random thoughts
that catch me.

Sitting in the near-empty
New Orleans River Walk food court
shortly after the assaults by
Hurricanes Katrina then Rita.

Or in the Magazine Street cafes-
free internet signals
and weak hot chocolate,
stuffed with people
sitting together and alone
mocking city-wide damages
behaving
like pre-disaster days.

Early morning hours
in Boston
at my friends’ kitchen table
before our day begins in earnest.

I’m slow to get going
for reveling in being free.
It excites me so, until
I’m at first struck dumb.
Then through ritual
and determination
reminding me
it’s time to write something;
the dam is broken
words, ideas, stories
come falling out of me.

If you didn’t catch
my intimation
that time
is rarely on my side,
now I’ve said it plain.
It is my constraint;
never wanting to rush,
I rarely have enough time
to just sit and be with things.

©2008 by Shari Lynne Smothers