WITHOUT BOTTOM
 
I’m watching TV, and as I’m watching TV,
sometimes I think, I wonder what's on TV?
And I smile because it dawns on me
that I'm already watching TV. 
 
Or sometimes, in my car, while I’m listening to talk radio
I think, It would be nice to listen to some talk radio,
and I reach for the radio and smile
because it dawns on me that I'm already listening to talk radio. 
 
Certainly, prior to the electric machines, they talked and sang. 
Certainly my great grandmother talked with her neighbors
and sang while hanging laundry out to dry,
and while singing and hanging
occasionally thought, I should like to talk with my neighbors and sing
and smiled…
 
And in the cryptic days of wandering,
when great silences would envelop everything,
when the mother tongues were simmering,
and the night sky was knowing and alive,
did we each feel to ourselves, now and again,
as we looked at the night sky,
I should like to look at the night sky.


A version of this poem first appeared in paperplates, Vol. 8, No. 4, 2016.