Brevitas...

There is hardly time
To do the things I ought to do.
The intentions and the duties and the shoulds
Overrun my hands and back and mind
Like black ants
On chokecherry branches:
Running always, in all directions,
And never being nearer finished.
I do not know what things
Would best be done the first.

The sparrows ought be driven from the eaves;
The rotted fence posts lean
And no one brought the wire
To the shed, since all the corn was checked.
Big blocks, unsplit, are all that are left
In the wood pile.
I do, not know what things
Would best be done the first.

I think I may run up
To the north pasture now,
To see if the wind that blows there
Is stirring leaves and moving branches
And whispering the grass
As it did yesterday.

Cecil D. Wade