An Organised Life

by Naomi Beth Wakan

I spend my life

organising my life,

slotting it into cubby-holes

labelled “food intake,”

“leg movements,” “skin contacts,”

“brain stimuli.”

I also have a list of ideas

for my poems on the fridge,

where I stick the week’s menus,

the day’s schedule,

what I should be

doing in the next hour,

and I stay alert for

the haiku of the moment.

Outside I feel that

children are probably

tumbling down hillsides,

shrieking with laughter.

Laughter enough to push

the clouds higher in the sky.

From And After 80, by Naomi Beth Wakan, Toronto: Bevalia Press, 2013, page 100.