Simplicity

Sometimes I clear off my table
just to show off the little print
of a Chinese painting that hangs
just over it. It's a pink flower
in a few blades of black grass.
It reminds me of the kind
of simple way I want to live,
sitting at my table, the chair
faces the wall, the cup
holds the tea, the wall is white
and holds up a single pink flower
at eye level. It's held there with three
nails because one corner bends
to the wall already. But too often
the table's a mess and I sit on a chair
with my pants hung on the back,
I put the cup down on a dictionary,
and listen to the news.
I still think, though, that sometimes
it opens something up in me when
I happen to notice it across the room,
a little lost in the jumbled objects
gathering around it like weeds.