I have been going through files, discarding bales of no longer relevant paper, but came across this wonderful short poem by Jim Chapson that seems a good antidote to the fervor of New Year’s resolutions:
What Are You Doing?
Tomorrow you will fall into a pit.
What are you doing today
To prevent this from happening?
Today you are digging the pit,
Today you are covering it with leaves and branches
So tomorrow you can say, “I didn’t know it was there.”
Jim Chapson
How many self-dug pits have I fallen into in a lifetime? As for Jim, he seems to be gliding above ground in Milwaukee.
I try not to visit my pits .Today things are rosy.Retirement suits me.
Oh good!
What am I doing? I’m busy.
Digging all those pits!
Has that trademark graytoned Wisconsin dreary pessimism all over it. (“You will fall into a pit tomorrow. All you can do today is dig it.”) Features the ingrained banality of depressive superficiality, frostbrittle Milwaukee. Ugh. Glad I got outta there. What ersatz angst!
I disagree, James, not that I’ve ever stayed in Wisconsin. But to me this is a kind of zen koan.