When You Don’t Know What Else to Do – a poem by Liza Halley

When You Don’t Know What Else to Do 

Shhhh. Look. 

Left eye, soul eye
secret eye looks down
to the white and black 
of the Sphinx moth 
nestled in the primrose leaves,
to the moss-covered rock
aglow in morning dew,
to the hole between tree roots
hiding a cluster of fungi.

Right eye,
turns up
to the towering sunflowers
filling the field,
to that October parade of maple leaves
lighting up the river road,
the trembling of finches 
cutting a dark swath 
across the cloudless sky.

Sometimes you must pack 
everything you need 
in one bag. Board a plane
to a land an ocean away,
sit on the edge of a canyon
watch the sun change the sky.

Sometimes you need to
gently pick the grass
stuck between the hot pink
dianthus blades in your garden bed.

Sometimes only your embrace 
of midnight’s pitch, eyes wide
everyone else asleep or gone
searching the internal darkness,
sometimes only then
can you see. 

Liza Halley works as an elementary school Library Teacher. Liza helped establish the Poet Laureate position in her hometown of Arlington, MA. She is the co-founder of Write Around Portland, a nonprofit based in Portland, OR that amplifies voices and builds community through our writing workshops, literary programming, books, and readings.She loves to build community through the written word, be it through poetry, zines, or comics. She has a poem that was recently published in Braided Way Magazine: Faces and Voices of Spiritual Practice.