the world doesn’t stop for me.
The kids call.
My husband gets hungry.
The chickens need clean water and hay.
I come home from work worn thin.

All day and into the night
I write lines in my head,
leave notebooks lying around everywhere.

Distracted, they say.
Yes, by the world.
Not by the words
and ideas.

Mary Oliver said,
and I believe her,
that for a writer,
it is the writing that matters.
So I’ll keep thinking,
composing poems,
creating characters and plots,
scribbling ideas and snippets in those notebooks,

even as the world comes streaming
through my door.