A Practice to Try

 
 The stream flows softly
 Quietly greeting all bends
 Soon comes a new course

— Micho



No cell phone, no caller id,
no cable, no Tivo, no Ipod,
no blueberry, no notepad,
no laptop, no riding mower,
no leaf blower, no weed eater,
no digital clock,
no air conditioner,
no new car;
 I live in another country,
 a different century.

I ride my 3-speed bike
 to work, because
 it helps the Earth
 and eases the body
 more gracefully
 into its dying;
it makes the body work hard  
 and it likes work,
 likes to do sweat-labor despite the avalanche
 of labor-saving technology
 whose function
 is to drain us
 of our life force.

I write by hand
 in a notebook
 because
 I like to see where I've been, follow my tracks
 back through the snow
 to where I started,
 see how things
 work out on the page,
 where I went wrong,
 how to begin again,
 nothing deleted.
I don't want to know
 who's calling or
 who has called.

I've lived 65 years
 and I have never
 gotten a phone call
 that made a difference.
If you reach me, that's fine,
 but if you don't
 nothing is lost.

After all these years of heartbreak and disappointment,
of treachery and betrayal,
 are you so far gone
 that you believe
 the next
 phone call
 will be the one
 that saves you?

When Death comes for you, 
 you can't say,
 Would you mind holding?
I've got a life on the other line.

― Red Hawk