Bartleby Revisited

I am, gentler reader, at a word, exhausted. Not tired. Not weary (although this word has shades of meaning that apply, to be sure).

ex·haust·ed /igˈzôstid/

Adjective:
1. Drained of one's physical or mental resources; very tired.
2. (of resources or reserves) Completely used up.

or:

wea·ry  \ˈwir-ē\

Adjective:
1. Exhausted in strength, endurance, vigor, or freshness

Nevertheless, things need be done. I cheat, perhaps, by using the words of others. In doing so, true, I surely am only doing what others have done before me. I have, by times, created, perhaps I can now simply borrow. And of course, by times, someone simply expresses something better than oneself is currently capable of. I rest, then, on the shoulders of giants.

Read, then, Gentle Reader, and consider:

Windchime

BY TONY HOAGLAND

She goes out to hang the windchime

in her nightie and her work boots.

It’s six-thirty in the morning

and she’s standing on the plastic ice chest

tiptoe to reach the crossbeam of the porch,

windchime in her left hand,

hammer in her right, the nail

gripped tight between her teeth

but nothing happens next because

she’s trying to figure out

how to switch #1 with #3.

She must have been standing in the kitchen,

coffee in her hand, asleep,

when she heard it—the wind blowing

through the sound the windchime

wasn’t making

because it wasn’t there.

No one, including me, especially anymore believes

till death do us part,

but I can see what I would miss in leaving—

the way her ankles go into the work boots

as she stands upon the ice chest;

the problem scrunched into her forehead;

the little kissable mouth

with the nail in it.

I see the problem, Gentle Reader, scrunched into your forehead, or perhaps mine. I can hear it, the sound that isn't there. No one, including me, especially believes that this post, or this poem, constitues an answer. It is not, for instance, Andrew Marvell, although some of that one rings true to me as well. We do not, it may be, have worlds enough, or time. We might, if we are lucky, or good, have till death. 

And I too can see what I would miss. Allow me, therefore, to stretch, tip-toed on the ice chest, and reach.