100 lines in praise of change

December 2023-February 2024 ____

1. I praise that I will be different when I finish this

2. I praise that I am not the same as I was at 40, 30, 20, 10-

3. I praise that I will turn this poem into something else

4. In praise of change cause I am not the center here.

5. In praise of teen-age poets banishing ‘I” from their lines

6. In praise of ink moving - liquid - words - thought

7. In praise of coffee alchemical mind

8. In praise of minor ailments

9. In praise of changes perspectives

10. In praise of a nudge towards care and softness

11. In praise of phone calls from old friends

12. In praise of the night

13. In praise of losing ‘that...”

14. In praise of steady heartbeats

15. In praise of orbits

16. In praise of seasons

17. In praise of water

18. In praise of dreaming vividly enough to hold ribbons on waking

19. In praise of eyeglasses

20. In praise of casts and braces, of physical therapy

21. In praise of bodies

22. In praise of sleep.

23. In praise of memory

24. In praise of books gifted in moments of inspiration

25. In praise of the wheel at the heart of it

26. In praise of forgetting

27. In praise of remembering

28. In praise of letters long gone

29. In praise of emails and texts, dms and ims, smoke signals and pigeons

30. In praise of tending to homes

31. In praise of fire

32. In praise of losing heart in a parking lot, alone

33. In praise of lost keys

34. In praise of long drives through empty towns

35. In praise of the landscape out the window

36. In praise of autumn in the northeast

37. In praise of winter anywhere

38. In praise of a planet on a tilting axis, dancing with the sun

39. In praise of airplanes

40. In praise of picking up and starting over

41. In praise of running away

42. In praise of new friends, basement bars and rocky overhangs

43. In praise of teachers from all directions

44. In praise of tension

45. In praise of splitting apart

46. In praise of trains that are late, cancelled, on-time and otherwise.

47. In praise of passengers who tell stories well

48. In praise of clutching a shirt sleeve

49. In praise of bringing flowers

50. In praise of making the call

51. In praise of answering

52. In praise of recognizing strangers on a darkened street.

53. In praise of sudden friends

54. In praise of longing for somewhere else.

55. In praise of reaching towards the unknown

56. In praise of marching with signs and shouts.

57. In praise of silence

58. In praise of tentative hands on a soft stomach

59. In praise of untethered time

60. In praise of youth

61. In praise of buses

62. In praise of books

63. In praise of the time it takes to read a book

64. In praise of finding the right book

65. In praise of falling asleep with a book

66. In praise of dreaming up a book

67. In praise of the words written in the front of a book with a date that marks a time before that book was gifted, that book was read, that book that opened a door -

68. In praise of losing a place

69. In praise of losing track of plans

70. In praise of dirt roads and rocks to climb.

71. In praise of boats

72. In praise of floating in a lake under a star-filled sky

73. In praise of an hour unaccounted for

74. In praise of long mornings away

75. In praise of breath

76. In praise of a list of things to do

77. In praise of steady progress, the wood and the water

78. In praise of the candle that burns away slowly

79. In praise of the evaporation of water and the crystals left behind

80. In praise of the bluebirds hovering around the wooden house the front yard, considering a future, even this year.

81. In praise of change that comes unbidden.

    Billowing up from unexplored, unnamed regions

    And washing over the stale air of

    Frets, worries, endless replays of the same old programs And suddenly, remarkably-
    The air is new
    Inexplicable

    Don’t try.
    Only praise the change that comes through the cracks, Untended
    Untended
    The openings
    Where a draft
    Can enter
    And -
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