New day’s resolution

For me a new year is not 365 stepping stones
For becoming something more than you are,
It's a grid of holes punched out
In orderly rows like the grate of a storm sewer
Over which passes a torrent of moments
Called my experience.
Some vanish into the holes,
Some slop onto the spaces between
And these sluices make up the flow of moments
Retained in memory that I call my history.

That you and I meet here at this reading,
This aqueduct between black holes,
Is most marvelous luck and sufficient
To fulfill the resolution I made for today:
To say just this as best I can
As who I am just now
And to thank you for being here.

Naturally selfish

Mikey I call him because he likes my recipe for hummingbird food
Like the kid in the cereal commercial who taste-tested and liked Life.
Though there’s room and food enough for four
Mikey fends off all the other hummers
Because he’s naturally selfish.
It’s why his species survives.
What matter that one hummer goes hungry?
This one will reproduce his selfishness and skills
And therefore his kind for at least another generation
And provide wonder and entertainment
For those of us who must be fair and generous
Because we foresee more complex possibilities
And through cooperation survive.

Attachments

My friend the luthier says
The bridge on this guitar needs replacing.
Trouble is, the last time it was replaced
They used epoxy,
Which soaks in, fusing the woods
So you can’t detach the bridge
Without tearing up the soundboard,
Wrecking the guitar.

Elmer’s would have been better, he said.
It’s water-soluble,
Just makes the two woods hold hands,
So when the time comes,
A little warmth
Can coax them to let go
With grace.

He says I shouldn’t try to fix it,
This old lovesick guitar,
Just play it till it breaks,
Then hang it on the wall -
Souvenir
Of all the love
Songs sung
As it swung in my arms.

It’s too late to ask,
But between the woods
Of me and you
Which would have been
The better glue?