Add Another Day Poem by Jenny Kalahar

Keep this body busy
And this brain, throughout day's hours
Bake angel cake and our daily bread
Wash every soiled thing of household and of body
Trim what's found to be too lengthy
Grow our real or imagined children upward
Bandage and sew and nail and patch
Bind us to our necessary things
Toss plain, brown seeds upon moistened black soil and wait
so we may feed every dog and every man
who steps beneath this welcome transom
Take time-worn books from off their shelves
Open rippling pages and recite heart-worn poems
Rake leaf-strewn grass and driveway gravel as it lies
Return live or dead unhooked fishing-worms to dirt and cover over
Paint chipped and peeling once-white walls
one more time again
Air Mother's fading quilts and fraying blankets
Mend sagging log fences that still strive to keep us in
Hang socks and workpants on the white rope wash line
Stoke the fire, add more water to Father's sturdy, cobalt kettle
Settle squirming, sleepy children to clean beds with tucks and questions
Find the softest corner chair to sit upon, steeped in golden lamplight
Tune the thrift-shop radio to word or song, open your book again
And feel, oh feel this day
by fragments slipping away
And let it go with night's closing eyes
Until another splashes in