! ! Business And Busyness Poem by Michael Shepherd

‘I’m very busy at the moment; but
I’ll look forward to reading your message
when I have more time…’

yeah yeah…

oh you ‘busy’ ones –
I’m on to you…

tell me that it’s not because
you’re ‘busily’ maintaining
a self-important picture of yourself–
(a picture based on fear?):

tell me that it’s not because
it’s your deceitful way to ‘prioritise’
what you want to give yourself to,
and that which you don’t…

‘Occupied’; ‘constantly active’ –
that sounds a little better,
a little more impersonal -
there’s hope for you…

But don’t we all love –
love them, even before we meet –
those (you know them?)
who seem, miraculously, to ‘have time’
for everyone – by appointment; or in emergency;

how do they manage it? Can it be,
they know the measures of the human heart
that make of time and space this lovely art?