The Temperature of Loneliness

Act with purpose, they said, like you know What you want to change. But I could Not help but wait a little. To linger there And trouble what was good, right, bid My time for some glimpse of wonder to Come rumbling through that blown open Road where, usually, nothing stopped, Let alone listened. I could not help but Shake the apprehension that whenever I acted with purpose, a purpose with a Certainty that shone as clear as death, Someone, somewhere—or, perhaps, an Animal, or a cloud, or a branch tremb- Ling with hard pink buds—was injured And my hubris had to do with it. Every Time I wandered, every time I did not Commit to an answer, or a way, or refused To resolve what must be done, there was Something outside of me that was saved.