ATTENTION
April 30/2020

the most common being on the roadside on the trailside on the shoreline on the cut block

this one is everywhere

​and more or less  invisible

though it is more generous than any could say
though without it the bees would be too lonely to go on
though it gives scent of dreams
though it breathes garlanded breath straight into our lungs
as if giving us CPR

mostly
we walk by
impoverished of  clue 
short on  care
hard-up and hard


​

Wait, I hear Ani.

"I'm beyond your peripheral vision, so you might want to turn your head",  she says
and she says,  "Squint your eyes and look closer."  


​

look closer
look closer 
look closer

​
pay attention, now

​


attention given 
Ley line  from no love
to some

stop, turn toward, give attention, don't stop
​ endangered-species act
near-gone  humility


pay attention
oh yeah we pay when we attend

giving the very least that we can possibly give really takes it out of us
it means tearing away from the personal careening screenplay frenzy
it means ripping out of  the magnetic compelling no-end orbit
​for one part of one second

it takes a lot
to become enough 
to make us think
​to  turn our head

when actually we don't have to
right now we're busy
it's conceivable we'll never be held to account
for what we did not pay






​



for example 
here is one speck
one lilac bud
among the crowd
who is ready to say



I am
I am
I am 
I am
I am


I am 32 flavors and then some
I'm nobody but I am someone


someone​
someone
someone
someone
someone



and I ask you
who loses
if my attention goes
​
unpaid