What Takes Time
(when fingers have been amputated)
Buttoning and chopping onions.
(you don’t button onions, natch!)
Throwing balls and playing catch;
Diverse actions needing oneness:
Three note chord, arpeggio
(If, of course you’ve played piano)
Wiping bum with just a thumb,
Zipping up,
Applying make-up.
Writing with a pen or pencil,
Lifting any large utensil;
Twists of wrists, techniques and muscles
While you’re rustling something up –
Things take time. You learn to cope,
And so,
You learn to take things slowly,
Much more slowly than you used to
When you ab- and mis-used time
By buzzing, cruising ‘round
Quite inexcusably.
Now focussed and enthused,
A strange new way infused,
The will to live renewed,
Things viewed as ordinary now extraordinary.
What takes time with digit gone
May have more than one compensation.
We shall see in years to come.
What Takes Time 11.24..2020 Birth, Death & In Between III; Pure Nakedness II; Arlene Nover Corwin
Arlene Corwin Poetry 