It’s the most ___ time of the year

Routine

Whenever I worry that
my middle name is inconsistency,
that erratic behavior disrupts
my chances at bliss
and my children’s balance,
stepping outside reminds me
that the leaves turn only once
each year.
And not for 30 minutes every morning.
Then they fall
and a new generation,
long waiting in promise
before gingerly pushing forth,
barely comes into its own
until sighing toward what appears
from the outside a glorious end.
Each day sits down the dial
from the next,
a new opportunity,
never something already lost.

While my husband has been out at a performance tonight, I’ve been going through two jam-packed drawers of business cards and whatever else needed a home away from children. I hoped it would go faster and that I’d move on to plans and emails toward the future.

Or at least to the dishes in the sink.

But it was a true jumble, now spread all over the floor. I’m fading quickly and must write before my prince returns, to our home of the puckered pumpkins.

As I contemplated going to bed before 10 like my doctors say I ought or doing one more load of laundry and writing the daily poem, I could think of nothing to write. So I called upon the photos of leaves I took this evening, and “Routine” is what arrived.

———

How do others negotiate consistency versus ebbs and flows?

———-

After casting aside my poetry hat for far too long, my NaBloPoMo plan is to write a poem — and to take and post a photo — every day in November, spending less than half an hour on both. The hope is to drill down, to focus, to look for and create beauty.

Previous Posts:

Day 1: Eleven One

Day 2: Shoreline

Day 3: Damage

Day 4: On Parenting and Sunrises

Day 5: When will we?

Day 6: Voting Line

Day 7: What I want my children to learn from me

Day 8: Haiku

Day 9: Reminders