National Poetry Month, Day 18

My brother sent me this poem. It is listed in the resources on a video he and his colleagues did on working from home, trying to help people who are suddenly having to do it; he works from home all the time, and so often faces the paradox of this line in the second stanza, when a family member needs him: "I would die for you but I don't have ten minutes."

Time Problem
by Brenda Hillman

The problem
of time.         Of there not being
enough of it.

My girl came to the study
and said Help me;
I told her I had a time problem
which meant;
I would die for you but I don't have ten minutes.
Numbers hung in the math book
like motel coathangers. The Lean
Cuisine was burning
like an ancient city; black at the edges,
bubbly earth tones in the center.

Here's the rest.

(And there's the video, if you want some great tips on working from home. My brother has some good words about giving people permission to be human in a riff he starts around 19 minutes in. The whole thing is worth watching.)

Here are today's lines for the Progressive Poem.

1 Donna Smith at Mainly Write
2 Irene Latham at Live Your Poem
3 Jone MacCulloch, deowriter
4 Liz Steinglass
5 Buffy Silverman
6 Kay McGriff at kaymcgriff
7 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
8 Tara Smith at Going to Walden
9 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
10 Matt Forrest Esenwine at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme
11 Janet Fagel, hosted at Reflections on the Teche
12 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
13 Kat Apel at Kat’s Whiskers
14 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
15 Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life
16 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
17 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
18 Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading
19 Tabatha at Opposite of Indifference
20 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
21 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
22 Julieanne Harmatz at To Read, To Write, To Be
23 Ruth at thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
24 Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wandering
25 Amy at The Poem Farm
26 Dani Burtsfield at Doing the Work That Matters
27 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
28 Jessica Big at TBD
29 Fran Haley at lit bits and pieces
30 Michelle Kogan at moreart4all