I was feeling overwhelmed the other morning. Just swirling, like a fly - all buzz but no landing. So I made a list. Honestly I should just make little word magnets that say LAUNDRY and DISHES and EMAIL and so on, all the things in my life that are never done, never settled, always needling. Then I could just arrange and re-arrange those words on my fridge and spare the paper I use to write those same words over and over each week. But it's the writing that does it - that captures all those floating, nagging tasks and pins them to the page. Then it feels like progress.
Still, listing is a word I love. Something about how the answer is in the question. The listing of a ship, the watery knees of feeling at sea. Listing as a stabilizer, like feet on dry land.
Listing
It could be the answer
to one of those word puzzles
on NPR Sundays
A word that is both the problem
and its own solution
Swaying mental towers
brought to attention in the quiet
confinement of columns and categories
clipboards and checkmarks
A line running though
an endless succession of
deadening upright endeavors
All leaning
All keening
Walled and blotted, a shake of the head
and a steadying breath of wind
lines of ballast on the ocean of the page