pause before writing

a poem on hesitancy + time

I try not to 
pause before writing

-- the gap 
can be 
as wide as a canyon 
as deep as Deep Lake 
near Marble, Colorado
waterhole fringed first
with easy green
but, then, mostly, blackness.
Rudy told me men
once tried to measure 
its depth but
had to be extracted 
before the crater
swallowed them--
Rudy, who drove a
4WD jeep along 
a crumbling road's
edge daily, to feed his
daughters, to give
tourists a thrill.

best to not 
stop / think  --
untended one can wander
straight out into 
the universe, 
making unplanned
haphazard
unguided
lefts and rights:
forgetting promises 
losing sight of distractions,
unconcerned about 
turning back or
bargaining with one's
later hour 
now.

-- better to 
abandon mapquest.
draw pencil sketches
in the margins.
forgo expectations.
recollect the old places
follow the breath as
the woman chasing 
the swallowtail 
as if "it" were something
known already, 
it: outcome defined --
what was 
swept up 
left behind,
what could be found 
by the light of lustrous pebbles 
left by children
to mark the way --