At the Last

I went too fast. As if insufficient 

time to rack up enough of something 

that would afford me a place in the be-

wildering universe, where I longed to fit 

but only in my way. The world was 

in my way, likewise salvation. I could see 

my way toward success by galloping, 

while maintaining the various live burners 

I juggled, watching, managing with 

an eventual light touch. Portion control 

in the imagination. My endurance 

held. And all too rarely I held still. 

A doctor of homeopathy 

advised me to savor. I had no 

idea how. The mantra, “like cures like,” 

gift of Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, 

whose statue stands in Washington, D.C., 

the theory replaced by allopathy, 

the authorized practice of medicine 

that sells us drugs with perky names, and people 

dancing on TV, faintly smiling 

the smile of recovering. No one 

exactly recovers from what hurts. 

Listen and watch someone other than 

yourself, I told myself. Slow down in time 

to be. In time to feel. Discover 

the cure for doing nothing doing.