A Day of Going Nowhere
Can I be a medicine
—John Ashbery
What calls us each to service?
For me, it’s not an absolutely
aggressive zilch. It’s, rather,
an inert, lazy, hedonistic zero.
Me? Service? Okay, I’m in
charge of this. But I have no
real wherewithal for appropriate
directions. There are experts at
this; there are experts at that.
Of what am I a master? It would
take time for me to come up with
even a possibility, and would it put
me in the position of doing anything?
Perhaps there is a greater good. I
see some of it common sense until
I realize how uncommon it is. And
I choose not to be a part of it. I am
able to weigh the idea, which might
be pure fantasy, that I choose to be
good. Mostly? But even there I find
myself restricted with limitations so
confounding. Still. I move in that
direction. Sometimes stubbornly.
But what’s good? So much just
for one step.
