Steven Searcy

The Working World

Too Easy to Remember

When my son says, “It’s too easy to remember,”

he doesn’t mean he’s going to ace a test

or there’s no need to write a grocery list

because it’s short and simple. In the amber

centers of his eyes there is no swagger,

no calm—this is a helpless plea to make

the terror go away. In panic he woke

and called, and now I’m here, but still the dagger

is lodged—the heart pulses. Evil came

coiling only in a dream, and yet

it isn’t willing to release its grip.

Days and years will follow—it’s the same—

it shadows, even when we aren’t asleep—

so much that isn’t easy to forget.

Here, clear, the strange

exchange of barking dogs,

the frogs remarking together

about the weather. Philosophy,

to me, is nothing next to sitting

where dragonflies are flitting, thrumming

with day-bright power—spending

an empty hour being filled

with spilled life from the working world.

The uncurled petals of noon will change,

but not too soon—the sky seeps song, long logs

are laid in shade, and every feather

finds the slot where it ought to be.

One way to see it all is quitting

the unfinished lists, getting small, becoming

more aware of now than any ending,

any why or how—just being stilled

and thrilled by the life of the working world.

Steven Searcy  is the author of Below the Brightness (Solum Press, 2024). His poems have appeared in Southern Poetry Review, Commonweal, The Windhover, UCity Review, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. He lives with his wife and four sons in Georgia.