This Summer, As Ever

This summer, as ever, there's much to do.

But only one or two things I want to do.

I told Alan that, like him, I'm never bored.

But today, like a teenager, I'm both tired and bored.

The long expanse of summer stretches forward. Alan plans

the next 2 years in advance, always moving forward. I can't plan

the next 2 hours, sitting on my arse, undecided whether

to clean the house, make a list of prospective donors, or check the 5-day weather

forecast. Fires out west, hurricanes south, drought here

in the east where the garden phlox withers and the corn's stunted. We hear

prophecies of armageddon, doom, but humans may go on another thousand, million 

      or billion years

undaunted. What is that to you. A day alone in your room and a year

are inexplicable. Now and then a vacation, baseball game, night of love.

A divorce, a death, a drouth. To survive and prosper we must love

all of it, insect infestations and world wars, cloud curlicues and square dances, work

and weekends off. Knowing the unknowable = never knowing how the world works.