I Get It!

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

I have never had an affinity for this poem nor really understood it until just now (and maybe it is the delerium of pulling nearly all-nighters at the end of the semester). As the semester has entered its final week, here I am frantically working at writing papers and studying to the exclusion of nearly all else. It has seemed the world has receded and all that is left is me and my keyboard, and yet I needed to eat. I took a break just now to grab a brownie. Not having enough time to be civilized about it, I leaned over the sink so the crumbs could fall directly down the drain, and as I did so I saw out of the window the shadow of an empty trellis against our shed roof. This simple image brought these words to mind: "so much depends upon." I was reminded that no matter what else is going on (strokes or busyness or whatever), the sun keeps making shadows whether anyone sees them or not. So much depends upon this - upon sun casting shadows and upon currently unused wheelbarrows sitting there in rain and shine and upon chickens going about their business whether human beings take the time to notice them or not.

I may be delerious, but I GET IT, and I figure since this poem by William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) is one of the emblematic poems of the 20th century, perhaps I am not in bad company - even if it took some amount of delerium to get me there.