IT'S NOT ENOUGH

Coming home yesterday

early in the evening

from taking the trash,

picking up the mail,

making a short walk

enjoying the sunshine,

the land becoming green,

the spring being here,

and being inside

cool, shady rooms

again, I got a headache,

a piercing headache,

I who now almost

never get one

now, they are a thing

of old memories

except once or twice

a year or so,

and all the shouting

of the world's ills,

the lives torn apart,

all the reading

of the light what

science casts

amid the gloom,

all the reading

and translating

and writing

of poems -

done, nothing

of that, just

an aspirin

and then laying

down in the bed,

sleeping, sixteen

hours gone

awakening

to sunshine

on a cold day,

the headache

gone with

the hours,

making and

drinking the first

mug of coffee,

translating the first

poem, from Edward

Thomas as the midday

light fills the room,

beautiful and cold,

and I have yet to

read about the lives

stolen when I slept,

the people who lived

in fear when I escaped

my little pain in sleep,

and who died mangled,

burning, when I slept,

because we allow it

from day to day,

from week to week,

from month to month,

from year to year,

from decade to decade.

We allow, we translate

poems, we read

and we write poems,

and we share and

we shout and it's

not enough.

25.04.2025