Comprehensive List of Things to Bring

The list
(sticks, a knife, sunscreen, tape)
written, for a lifetime of ailments
one might expect to find. In the
wilderness we need
protection
from the cold, wind, heat,
starvation; from animals, insects,
each other; from the sacred
solitude, the one
where God finds us sometimes; where
unhappiness often resides like a
plague.

Peel back the layers
of gauze and betadine, the callus
covering the palm, the soft plastic shielding our eyes
from the sun, and one might find
a human
exposed, with
a bewildered stare, skin supple
as wet rock.

To listen carefully is to
hear a hammering
in the distance, structures going up, walls
coming down.
Nothing lasts and even if it does
it needs attention and
support and
blood
mixed with the paint.

How much glue, then,
how many nails and rolls
of duct tape to get through a life?
How many lists created, and forgotten,
endlessly tipping, like cartwheels
in the wind; how many sticks that simply
snap under the weight of our own
breath?