The Marigold Bowl (poem)

The Marigold Bowl

The marigold bowl

Iridescent with the polished soles of a river rat’s

escape motions

And carrying, in gaudy panoply of purple green

On orange, a sense of occasion

If the wise man, who must have been there, counseling

Soft-core deadened by the light of a tiny screen

Mind hungry for results, feed-station repetition

A new head-scratcher, a new eye-catcher

If he had not foreseen

That while things outlive their owners—so they do

Things proliferate on earth and every coveting heart

Can find this crime reduced to a misdemeanor

Right the grudge of childhood with a card

From his height he never saw the future—

America, the mass garage sale, the auction-house

Tool him to a spice rack on the shelf

Where one can find the sage

The process of suctioning away into a hole

A sea worm…and of such creatures, the numbers are untold

leaving in its wake bits of flotsam

That waft unmoored for one last second

A willing helper, always a willing helper

Having not the dreamed-of life’s rewards

Not analytical not proud

enough to risk an admonition

Worried beyond all possible calumniation

To seem excited, moved by a feeling

Wrong about anything

Undermining in protest—this feebly

not rebelling

So there, the bowl, it isn’t worth anything now

No use supposing you’ll get it

The Marigold Bowl

The Minister of Inaction

(2017, Stephanie Foster)