Big Chunk of Something

"When _we_ think of poetry, most of us think of lyric poems, printed texts in which rhythmical monologists express strong feelings as they struggle through problems to achieve moderately satisfying resolutions. Yet for Aristotle . . . poetry was not a thing . . . but rather an activity, a 'making.'"

Experienced awareness revels
In the gentle sensorium
Of a sumptuous bed. Whatever.

Keep going. The groundhog
That I was woke up for once
Too early to see his shadow
And limped around his house
Naked in front of all the windows,
Feeling tired and shy but bad.
That was a past that is what
It never was. Here we go.

The sun, like Aristotle, is out
To describe every kind of making,
Good and crappy, except this
Or that he never knew about
And therefore never saw. Always,
In the brightest most brilliant
Minds or sunlight, there is shade
Somewhere, even if only on the other
Side of things, a kindness
As well as an inevitable confusion.

My wife leaves all the doors ajar,
The caps on her shampoo bottles
And toothpaste tubes off and open.
Because of this, because of
My wife, my life is always open.
Her heart is the Colorado Plateau,
Her arteries its long rivers,
Always open, even in canyons,
Even when she wanders the dark
At four in the morning, searching
For the sleep that left her long ago.

And I'm pouring a glass of dark red
Something while our toddler draws
With washable markers henna colors
On bare feet, arms, and hands. Haze
Settles around our windows, clocks
Click, Sarah tries to nap on the sofa.
What are we going to do with this
Who has nothing to do with us?

"I got a lollipop! Looks like an onion!
I got a big, big sucker!" sings out
Savage, the burgundy-painted one.