We all know the feeling of being torn between wanting to take the time to think deeply and needing to get up to get something done. The tension between lofty ideas and everyday practicalities is a theme that runs through many of the works in this collection. In the poem quoted above, titled “Prayer,” we learn about “the drugstore, the beauty products, the luggage” in addition to a condition where “days and nights pour through me like complaints and become a story I forgot to tell.” We all have those stories! These poems can make readers want to write poetry.
Howe, Marie. “The Prayer.” The Kingdom of Ordinary Time. Norton, 2008, p. 27.