Things Shouldn't Be So Hard

Here is "a worn-out place" where restaurant servers stand to collect plates and silverware to set up the tables for new patrons. Many feet have stepped, dirtied, or worn away these kitchen floor tiles. More wear at a central target and less wear towards the edges. This is a frequency patten that we have seen often.

It brings to mind the poem "Things Shouldn't Be So Hard," by former US Poet Laureate and MacArthur Fellow, Kay Ryan (via the NYTimes). Considering all the worn and marked things we have illustrated in these postings, Ryan's poem could be the defining wish for this blog.

THINGS SHOULDN'T BE SO HARD

A life should leave
deep tracks:
ruts where she
went out and back
to get the mail
or move the hose
around the yard;
where she used to
stand before the sink,
a worn-out place;
beneath her hand
the china knobs
rubbed down to
white pastilles;
the switch she
used to feel for
in the dark
almost erased.
Her things should
keep her marks.
The passage
of a life should show;
it should abrade.
And when life stops,
a certain space—
however small —
should be left scarred
by the grand and
damaging parade.
Things shouldn't
be so hard.