Trying to only see
what is in front of me
my eyes are continually drawn
away from this page
and the work left to be done—
my labored words etched
and scratched away
like fleeting mosaics
in dry sand.

I need a windowless cell
to work the alchemy
that shapes the palpable
from the ether of thought.

It is hard to imagine
any poem more important
than the massive bolts of ash
dry and brittled
in an overgrown field
waiting to be split and stacked
into a perfection of form
and preparedness.