Poem: unruled

Unruled

“Don’t scatter your fire” they said.
don’t rush out after too
many quarries, don’t tire, don’t
spread your goals
like dewdrops on the faces
of so many flowers in the mire.

So, disciplined at last, I concentrate.
but as I focus on a page,
a word, a date,
I lose the measure of the story,
the errant glory in the dewy wilderness.
Instead I gaze at chilling books of stone,
engraved with rules.
none liberate.

Oh let it be all right
to idle!
Please sanction this,
that I can chance upon the route to grace;
no, more than that –
the space and time and need to let
the petals of a-myriad daisies
tumble down upon my upturned face.