Looking Around, Believing
How strange that we can begin at any time. With two feet we get down the street. With a hand we undo the rose. With an eye we lift up the peach tree And hold it up to the wind — white blossoms At our feet. Like today. I started In the yard with my daughter, With my wife poking at a potted geranium, And now I am walking down the street, Amazed that the sun is only so high, Just over the roof, and a child Is singing through a rolled newspaper And a terrier is leaping like a flea And at the bakery I pass, a palm, Like a suctioning starfish, is pressed To the window. We're keeping busy — This way, that way, we're making shadows Where sunlight was, making words Where there was only noise in the trees.
by Gary Soto
from New and Selected Poems by Gary Soto
Chronicle Books, 1995
