You are not here long.
Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop,
a little like a detective.
Die knowing something.
The easiest way is to just raise your voice
at the end of a sentence:
Where is my clock?
Can I bring my wheelchair?
Is this real?
You had to figure out how not to die.
That’s not quite what I want.
I love to watch things move,
the beech tree or the silver birch,
the leaves in a sudden frenzy
as fall comes on.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry. His other books include A Ghost Sings, a Door Opens (2016) from Another New Calligraphy.