Good Things

After the poem Three Good Things by Jan Dean.

 

At week's end, I remember

three good things.

 

Maybe pencils, with their quiet apt of strokes

for a gravelly ground,

or a fading, fraying edge, or a feather,

or a pamphlet of zebra

stripe.

 

Maybe glass, for when it never lets me miss the details,

the detail behind a history,

haberdashery shop counters dressed,

even if only now in a vintage photo,

a photo of an aunt,

or details outside or next room

& often worn as a new bracelet bead.

 

Or else a duckling from childhood,

one remembered from when we imagined

a name for them, then, & we travelled home again.

Then, I drafted a fiction.

 

My thoughts are full of these things & more,

so much more than the above three.

 

I clasp these things in knowledge tomorrow, & they will vary,

there will be more

& there will be new when I awake.