Monday Poem

In all cases, the goal is to move past literal life into the imagination
to render the almost—to express the mysterious ambiguity that is. . .
………………………………………………..
—Nicholas Dawidoff, writer

Almost

yesterday
I walked our yard
with a grandson
who toddled beside
in a state
almost

of disequilibrium
but he tended
his balance
and stayed upright
and the walk
we walked was
almost

something which would come again
when he’d walk with
his grandson —if his days
were almost
like mine

almost as lucky
restless
reckless
full
fettered
free

almost
happy as a calm
shifty sea

full and vacant as the hole
at the center of a wheel
around which

if it were not hollow
its rim would never spin
and there’d be nothing,
including me

but nada is nothing
we can imagine
or almost
be

Jim Culleny
5/22/17