Danusha Laméris: "Thinking"

Don’t you wish they would stop,
all the thoughts swirling around in your head,
bees in a hive, dancers tapping their way across the stage.
I should rake the leaves in the carport, buy Christmas lights.
Was there really life on Mars? What will I cook for dinner?
I walk up the driveway, put out the garbage bins.
I should stop using plastic bags, visit my friend
whose husband just left her for the Swedish nanny.
I wish I hadn’t said Patrick’s painting looked “ominous.”
Maybe that’s why he hasn’t called.
Does the car need oil, again? There’s a hole in the ozone
the size of Texas, and everything seems to be speeding up.

Come, let’s stand by the window and look out
at the light on the field. Let’s watch how
the clouds cover the sun, and almost nothing
stirs in the grass.

"Thinking" by Danusha Laméris. Text as published in The Moons of August (Autumn House Press, 2014). Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Art credit: "Frosty Meadow," photograph taken along Fall River in Rocky Mountain National Park (Colorado, USA) by Brent Wiescamp, dated 09/29/2012.

Wiescamp writes: "Save for a decade in exile, I have lived in Colorado near the Rocky Mountains. I am in love with the (mostly) jagged peaks. Yet where I find solace, where my racing mind slows and my thoughts become singular and cohesive, is in the flats of the many meadows nestled amongst those mountains.... Quiet, except for the echoing bugle of bull Elk gathering their harems. I am grateful that I live here and that I am able to visit places like this. I am grateful that I can immerse myself in its peace and allow it to overcome me and give me rest."

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