Eat the Orange

The fragility of tomorrow
is the delicately balanced fruit
just out of reach.
Despite flossing, eating spinach,
keeping the gutters clean,
having the furnace serviced,
we cannot escape the green leaf
becoming brown,
the orange’s skin blooming wrinkles,
the body slowing down,
needing more repairs.

Today is not a perfection to be saved
for next week or next month.
We must savor the unknown, clay-like bend in the road,
the thumbprint in wet cement,
the days when we stumble from
looking too long at the fruit of tomorrow.

The eternal now is the challenge.
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one
wild and precious life?” Oliver asks.
Get your hands messy in mud.
Make mistakes in ink, cross things out.
Step in puddles with boldness.
Leap with toes unpointed, dare to be imperfect.
Eat the orange.