More or Less

You are given a bunch of pink hydrangeas. Listen close now. A bunch is not a lot. A bunch is a bunch in flower terms. Speaking florally, this is a measurement. The clean content of language in a word. Hold the bunch. Like a bride, like a flower girl. Hold the bunch because you want to feel beautiful. You want to smell the beauty from your hand.

Different, say, than miles. Miles of errands we run on the daily. Hourly tasks, broken down into minutes. One minute I think of what I must do. The next minute I think of what I must do, must do. Listen close to miles of inside chatter. Inner child.

 

Start over. You are given a bunch of hydrangeas. They are for you, but considering thought, a thought considered, you might scatter them. Let the wind carry the petals, taking them away. You might scatter them into the wind. Suddenly, the city is drifting.

It yells out to you, come back to the city, city girl. Don't let the mountains raise you, don't let the tree hug you. Try not to live inside the trunk. You know, in the area they carved out for you? Try not to live inside that spot.

Outside you don't have to make bunches of things. It's already done for you. Landscapes arranged. Flowers together. Even the sky is painted. At night there are stars. During the day there is a jet-stream. Farther away, there are clouds. Farther from the city, there are only clouds.

Sit here, anyway. Sit here and write a poem, the poem you thought you saw. With words, and line breaks, and there is even a line that rhymes. Two minutes, or three. You think a thought. You think the next thought: I will try to think less, though. Think less about what I have to do. Think less, making lists. Think more, thinking more. Two minutes, or three. The table is square and the chair is holding me. I am sitting in this chair and it is holding me.