Forgive me if I did not give thanks for

the setting sun lighting flames

in all the windows across the lake,

the way love flares and falls to embers,

while the evergreens fold their arms

and the white birch whispers.

Forgive me for all the Creeping Charlie

I tore up by the roots despite its tiny purple blossoms.

 

Forgive me for my despair in the library

where I can never read all the great books

flaunting their spines before me.

 

Forgive me for all the chores I left undone

while I watched the way the pond water pooled

in the shade where the tadpoles formed and reformed

their own nervous shadow. I accomplished nothing.

 

Forgive me for all the beggars I never gave to

all the good causes I didn’t support, all the meetings

I skipped to hide away and read a book.  

Forgive me.

I did not save the world.