One Almost Might

Wouldn't you say,

Wouldn't you say: one day,

With a little more time or a little more patience, one might

Disentangle for separate, deliberate, slow delight

One of the moment's hundred strands, unfray

Beginnings from endings, this from that, survey

Say a square inch of the ground one stands on, touch

Part of oneself or a leaf or a sound (not clutch

Or cuff or bruise but touch with finger-tip, ear-

Tip, eyetip, creeping near yet not too near);

Might take up life and lay it on one's palm

And, encircling it in closeness, warmth and calm,

Let it lie still, then stir smooth-softly, and

Tendril by tendril unfold, there on one's hand ...

One might examine eternity's cross-section

For a second, with slightly more patience, more time for reflection?