oh!

she steps off the path 
of her self-prescribed to-do list,
a path of tasks ordered thoughtfully
according to urgency, to inner wishes,
to mindful mapping,
                                                                 off the path
of lock-step mindset:
do this, then this, then this,
                                                                 off the path
of efficiency and productivity,
of purpose and execution.

off the path                                                    and into pause

                                                                 into the tock tock
of what might be a metronome
but is in fact the second hand
of the battery-operated
wall clock beside the desk
in her workspace,
                                                                 into the muffled
press of alphabetic keys
on her laptop, requiring none of the muscle,
offering none of the metallic music
of the manual machines on which
she learned to type in ninth grade,
                                                                 into the small white
ceramic trinket tray
on which rests an orphaned earring,
its mate lost in the grasses and weeds
at the edge of a virginia cornfield
some dozen years gone,
                                                                 into the three
chestnuts collected late last fall
with an idea of posing them
so she could paint
color swatches in deep rich browns
with hints of russet,
                                                                 into the reverberation
of her husband’s footsteps,
his familiar tread up the stairs to the deck,
the snick of latch release,
the weighty thunk of door
landing solidly in frame,
                                                                 into the firmament
beyond the skylight—where
she is soaring crow, energy
of deepest blue black, arrowing
with might and grace
through morning’s sunbright.

—dotty seiter

=====

=====

Notes about poem and art:
• What a gift one morning last spring to step off my intended path and into the start of drafting “oh!”, getting a rush of words spilled onto the page. I eventually returned to the draft this autumn to craft it through to resolved poem. I wrote in free-verse, implementing visual structure, word choice, epistrophe, and alliteration in service of musicality.
• Similarly, nearly a year after purchasing a few beautiful chestnuts, I finally stepped off the path of procrastination into the pause that made space for me to paint color swatches to celebrate these burnished meditation beads.