In the Middle

I don’t care for blank slates.

Why start anew when I’ve already begun?

New beginnings feel naked and cold

And disembodied somehow,

But life in the middle of the checklist,

Below the done but before the do –

It feels Goldilocks right –

Warmed by the blaze of possibility

But cooled by sober experience –

It’s spring:

Opportunity sprung up from decaying failure,

The dandelion that grows on the dung pile.