The Unexamined Life 

Floating on a broad river of sadness.

Through a gorge. Bright sun.

Not consolation or desolation but something else.

The way I was in high school

when every morning I woke up joyous

and just did things and everthing was easy

but now the joy is so thinned out

and sheer it’s more like detachment.

The philodendron snips I keep

putting in little vases with nothing

but water and somehow they keep growing.

They’re all over the house.

I think about them. I keep track of them.

And the fog in the morning and how

it slowly burns off as the day goes on.

Leaves. Stars. Sometimes

the unexamined life is worth living.