From Here to There
Everything needs readiness,
baskets emptied,
gladiolus spear placed in
a glass.
Before you begin,
before you let yourself move
from here to there,
you attend to little things,
a cat's mouth open and crying,
a thin parade of ants
along the sill.
Something in the way we are made
wants order. Wants three pillows
lined across the head of the bed,
wants porches swept and shades raised.
Before we begin. Before we head into
those secret rooms no one else
has cleaned for years,
where memories rest in heaps,
without cabinets,
and have only to be touched lightly
to shine.
-Naomi Shihab Nye
from Red Suitcase
Gathered, 2001
