The Hardest Thing of All

My uncle hasn't sold a painting in
what seems like 20 years--and still they say
the hardest thing of all is to begin.

To wake, each morning's pounding like a drum,
and feel the way collision, between the mind and skin,
like light like from a bottle quickly runs.

Like women who, starting hard, begin to turn
their eyes, their concentration. Gone, like a gun
we drift through bars--the way our bodies learn.

I confess this to you. The anguish of witnessing
the careful ways our eyes collect, discerns
the fragility of our eyes, rain water in a spring.

But the time it takes to learn a language over
a period of your life equates almost exactly with
the words you haven't yet spoken to your lover.

I was young, and I learned that both feet
matter when you take a step, and my mother
matter of factly said to me

"All that holds you now is what you knew then.
The hardest thing of all is to begin."