2001/delayed

The developmentally delayed
girl loves her job
at the bookstore,
lining up the edges
of the books with
the shelf.
It makes me nuts
to watch.
I want to say
don’t you know how futile
this is,
but it would be
unkind to disrupt
her obsession,
her pattern,
her whispered
chatter to herself.
Her vespers.
Besides I have
my own delusions
to deal with,
that anything
I’m doing
matters.
That I am
making progress,
not just circling
the ground
where I just was.
It helps to pray
as you go
I find,
to keep a good
rhythm with
your feet,
to make it a dance,
it helps to sing
some,
to make strange
noises,
to paint, or
feather,
to shake something,
to call it music,
to imagine that
life
is art.

10/9/01