Just So Simple

It’s simple- how to live, that is:
live and die each day. 

Strive to live each morning
as if it was the first:

pull the colors around you 
to something that lives 
beyond the eyes.  

Treat the world not as Adam:
something to be touched, 
named, collected, defined—

but as Eve:
the sun as an ingenue 
something young, innocent 
not to be defiled but protected. 

Live each night as 
if it were your last:

set the table for the next 
person who eats after you, 

clear the roar of your mind,
shroud the alarm clock,
deaden the tablet of light, 
glance out the window and 
see the light beyond the dark.

and before you take 
that long sleep
praise every surface,  
baptize every living thing.