Beneath the Avalanche

You know those days....the ones where you feel overwhelmed, covered with too much to do, too little time, etc, etc. Well I was having one last night. I had attended a rally protesting the opening of in-situ uranium mining in our beautiful Black Hills and arrived home to a phone call from someone needing assistance, an email about the Environmental Impact Study regarding saving our VA now in process and needing our written comments, another email from someone working on my web site needing immediate attention, and......I sorta lost it!

Today, in the light of another day, I am looking at everything more clearly. The most helpful was a poem that I received from a friend who is likewise overwhelmed with issues. I am digesting it as I write and will now pass it on to my readers.

"GOLDEN RETRIEVALS"          BY MARK DOTY

Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention
seconds at a time. Catch? I don't think so.
Bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who's - oh
joy - actually scared. Sniff the wind, then

I'm off again: muck, pond, ditch, residue
of any thrillingly dead thing. And you?
Either your sunk in the past, half our walk,
thinking of what you never can bring back,

or else you're off in some fog concerning
--tomorrow, is that what you call it? My work:
to unsnare time's warp (and woof!), retrieving,
my haze-headed friend, you. This shining bark,

a Zen master's bronzy gong, calls you here,
entirely, now: bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow.