Katharine Coles

(listen here, or read below)

HOW I AM DOING

First, I am no longer thinking

The world needs to organize

Itself to my taste, which arranges

Life and its objects around my

Own set quirks and peccadilloes, no

-one else’s, much less any system’s

That can be reliably tested. Now,

I leave all that stuff to physics, history –

Various disciplines to which

I am merely subject, and their

Respective gaggles of scholars. How am I

Doing that? By, second, changing

The questions in favor of

Different answers, mean

-while doing nothing

Useful, no keeping wolves from the door

Or rescuing children, no remodeling, no

Cobbling my own shoes. Idling,

I watch hummingbirds zoom

And fight over nectar feeders

And squirrels make agile

Raids on the seed we put

Out for buntings. Likewise, I am doing

Away with the future

As any bright or even dis-

cernable object and therefore also

The past which may have led us here,

Who can say. Having also been

Looking for a way of using

“Peccadillo” in a sentence, tongue

-in-cheek or not and whether

It makes sense just now to do so,

I have accomplished everything

I’d put on my list for today: say

Check. Only the world calls me

In its winged and jittery splendor,

Disarrayed by principles I may never

Understand, according to which, as I

Haply am, I’d do myself over.