Poem for Monday

I live near a river, which reminds me every day needs to be like a river. What comes by for me, what I catch, what I remember to do is what I have for this minute. Today. And that's all I need to have, to do, to be. Because if I don't catch it, remember it, do it, it will come for me again. When the time is right. But Robert Bly says it so much better.

People Like Us

by Robert Bly

for James Wright

There are more like us. All over the world
There are confused people, who can't remember
The name of their dog when they wake up, and
     people
Who love God but can't remember where

He was when they went to sleep. It's
All right. The world cleanses itself this way.
A wrong number occurs to you in the middle
Of the night, you dial it, it rings just in time

To save the house. And the second-story man
Gets the wrong address, where the insomniac lives,
And he's lonely , and they talk, and the thief
Goes back to college. Even in graduate school,

You can wander into the wrong classroom,
And hear great poems lovingly spoken
By the wrong professor. And you find your soul
And greatness has a defender, and even in death
  you're safe.

For more of my rivers you can go here.