How Do I Know When a Poem is Finished? (Monday Poem)

by Naomi Shihab Nye


When you quietly close
the door to a room
the room is not finished.

It is resting. Temporarily.
Glad to be without you
for awhile.

Now it has the time to gather
its balls of gray dust,
to pitch them from corner to corner.

Now it seeps back into itself,
unruffled and proud.
Outlines grow firmer.

When you return,
you might move the stacks of books,
freshen the water for the roses.

I think you could keep doing this
forever. But the blue chair looks best
with the red pillow.S o you might as well

leave it that way.



from Honeybee: Poems and Short Prose by Naomi Shihab Nye, 2008, Greenwillow Books