Hum (Poem)

and life is a roaring floodwater
treacherous and willful, snaking wet fingers into every quicksilver minute

beginning with a dog bite and a car accident, the week refuses
to slacken pace for two breaths together.
autumn muses coolly, while laundry
stays on the line for five days, touch-dry but cold.

school runs, kinder runs,
gymnastics dancing guitar piano craft club swimming theatre
charging hither and yon, measuring out the space
til the next foray. this does not consider of course
the homework, practice and projects to be aided
lurid pink medicine to be administered four times daily to prevent infection
the mediating of fights and brokerage of armistice
(and addressing existential fears and longings -
"Why am I here?" asks the middle child, while the youngest
wants me to stop death, permanently).

and leave aside the foundational house-businesses -
the meals prepared, the clothes laundered,
the stains scrubbed at and the porcelain disinfected,
the scattered attempts at tidiness
doomed ultimately to failure because I do not care enough to trade sleep for neat rooms

and oh don't get me started on the administrivia -
the tedious hours on the phone and Internet bless its heart sorting out bills and bookings,
forms and details
the raffle tickets and chocolate drive boxes, excursion notes, school photo orders

the minutiae of us, reproduced in triplicate, and witnessed by two independent persons -

with this, let's not forget, work
an infant mountain of it - a hill, perhaps? - to be thought of and built
documents from air, turned into bytes
for clients to eat and then, in time, pay for -

never out of the main current for a second
no quieter eddies here

things are missed, of course -
a meeting forgotten, an article unwritten
while other unauthorised pleasures are stolen from duty -
walks in the softening sun, an hour with a book
too many cups of tea to count
a movie, watched with the youngest, in a half-doze -

and life hums on, the murmur of the hive
a daze of action and movement
from which I still force
the tiniest of gaps for dreams.

- Kathy, 26/4/13