This Life

It's a pickle, this life.
Even shut down to a trickle
it carries every kind of particle
that causes strife on a grander scale:
to be miniature is to be swallowed
by a miniature whale. Zeno knew
the law that we know: no matter
how carefully diminished, a race
can only be half finished with success;
then comes the endless halving of the rest--
the ribbon's stalled approach, the helpless
red-faced urgings of the coach.

-- Kay Ryan (1945- ), US poet laureate 2007-2010

The Best of It

However carved up
or pared down we get
we keep on making
the best of it as though
it doesn't matter that
our acre's down to a square foot. As
though our garden
could be one bean
and we'd rejoice if
it flourishes, as
though one bean
could nourish us.

--Kay Ryan (1945- ), US poet laureate 2008-2009



Photo: Detail of Walter Ufer's Hunger.