The New Year is progressing with astonishing speed. Seems like the Rose Parade has just ended, and already more than a week has flown by. A valued friend from the Pacific Northwest dropped me a note, asking me to comment on the momentous presidential inauguration coming up soon, as well as the new Surgeon General. (Does anyone remember any Surgeon General since C. Everett Koop?) However, I prefer to let the pundits pontificate on such weighty topics, especially as there is no shortage of them on any given channel you care to view. Perhaps, if my ire gets sufficiently high, I’ll jump in with my own irrelevant opinions. Until then, at least for today, I’ll stick to sharing poetry with you. As someone once famously observed, we need poets, for we don’t pay them enough to lie to us. That’s more than can be said for pundits.

One Question

I ask the Parkinson’s patient

how she wants to live:

            “purposefully, like rain.”

               I imagine high clouds –

               angry water motionless

               over a wide Mesozoic desert.

            the stroke patient:

            “whole, like a symphony.”

               I take notes about notes –

               listening for silent spaces.

            The Alzheimer’s patient:

            “aware, like Spring.”

               I see seeds scattered

               by the wind –

               what they hold.

Michael Wynn