Making It All Count

Twenty Questions * by Jim Moore
Did I forget to look at the sky this morning when I first woke up? Did I miss the willow tree? The white gravel road that goes up from the cemetery, but to where? And the abandoned house on the hill, did it get even a moment? Did I notice the small clouds so slowly moving away? And did I think of the right hand of God? What if it is a slow cloud descending on earth as rain? As snow? As shade? Don't you think I should move on to the mop? How it just sits there, too often unused? And the stolen rose on its stem? Why would I write a poem without one? Wouldn't it be wrong not to mention joy? Sadness, its sleepy-eyed twin? If I'd caught the boat to Mykonos that time when I was nineteen would the moon have risen out of the sea and shone on my life so clearly I would have loved it just as it was? Is the boat still in the harbor, pointing in the direction of the open sea? Am I still nineteen? Going in or going out, can I let the tide make of me what it must? Did I already ask that?  *