The Field Guide to Nothing

The Field Guide to Nothing, kept
on a nightstand never gets read, too much
of every thing in life still in need of getting done.

No day goes by without the hope of
digging in, imagining what it might be like
to finally be finished with it all — and certainly,

there have been hopeful nights, feeling
close enough to touch it, nights that make it seem
like perhaps, tomorrow will come

free of a single thing in need of doing —
because it’s all been done — still, something
inevitably comes up, The Field Guide to Nothing

gathering dust, to dust.

Stephen Jackson [he/him] lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The American Journal of Poetry, Dreams Walking, 50 Haikus, Ghost City Review, Impossible Archetype, The Inflectionist Review, Iō Literary Journal, Neuro Logic, October Hill Magazine, Quince, Stone of Madness Press, and S/WORD, as well as on the International Human Rights Art Festival Publishes platform and in the PoetRhy Garden.