When Life Seems a To-Do List

 

When the squares of the week fill
with musts and shoulds,

when I swim in the heaviness of it,
the headlines, the fear and hate,

then with luck, something like a slice of moon
will arrive clean as a bone

and beside it on that dark slate
a star will lodge near the cusp

and with luck I will have you 
to see it with, the two of us,

fools stepping out the back door
in our pajamas.

Is that Venus?--I think so--Let's
call it Venus, cuddling up to the moon

and there are stars further away
sending out rays that will not

reach us in our lifetimes
but we are choosing, before the chaos

starts up again,
to stand in this particular light.

--Marjorie Saiser

[Photo taken in our backyard by the light of the moon].