Because we spill not only milk
by Nancy Shaffer

Because we spill not only milk
knocking it over with an elbow
when we reach to wipe a small face
but also spill seed on soil we
thought was fertile but isn't
and also spill whole lives and only
later see in fading light how
much is gone and we hadn't
intended it

Because we tear not only cloth
thinking to find a true edge and
instead making only a hole but
also tear friendships when we grow
and whole mountainsides
because we are so many
and we want to live right where black oaks
lived, once very quietly and still

Because we forget not only what
we are doing in the kitchen
and have to go back to the room we were in
before, remember why it was we left
but also forget entire lexicons of joy and
how we lost ourselves for hours
yet all that time were clearly
found and held and also forget
the hungry not at our table

Because we weep not only at jade
plants caught in freeze and
precious papers left in rain but
also at legs that no longer walk
or never did, although from the outside
they look like most others
and also weep at words said once as
though they might be rearranged but
which once loose, refuse to return
and we are helpless

Because we are imperfect and love so
deeply we will never have enough days,
we need the gift of starting over, beginning
again: just this constant good, this
saving hope.