Monday, May 17, 2021

Looking Around, Believing (Monday Poem)

by Gary Soto


How strange that we can begin at any time.
With two feet we get down the street.
With a hand we undo the rose.
With an eye we lift up the peach tree
And hold it up to the wind -- white blossoms
At our feet. Like today, I started
In the yard with my daughter,
With my wife poking at a potted geranium,
And now I am walking down the street,
Amazed that the sun is only so hight,
Just over the roof, and a child
Is singing through a rolled newspaper
And a terrier is leaping like a flea
And at the bakery I pass, a palm
Like a suctioning starfish is pressed
To the window.  We're keeping busy --
This way, that way, we're making shadows
Where sunlight was, making words
Where there was only noise in the trees.



from A Fire in My Hands: A Book of Poems
by Gary Soto
Scholastic, 1990

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