Tell Me

 

Don’t tell me about your new car

with its fancy dashboard and back up camera.

Don’t tell me about your latest trip to

some foreign country with beaches and sunshine.

Don’t tell me how long you waited in the drive-thru

line for your morning latte.

Tell me instead about birdsong in the morning,

the male goldfinches singing their hearts

out, dressed in their brightest yellow feathers.

Tell me about the row of orange and pink

Zinnias, planted especially for bees and butterflies.

Tell me how much you care about this old planet

with all its light and darkness, its joys and sorrows.

Tell me the stories of its creation and the hope for its future.

Tell me love stories about you and me.

—

Day 22 of Poem a Day at Writer’s Digest