Goals/Beginning

I have decided that, to form a more perfect union (with myself), to set daily goals, at least while I am mired in a quarantine.

I hold these truths to be self-evident: that I should be writing about 30 pages of copy a day. That I should make at least one drawing. That I should write three poems. That I should write or record one song.

To begin, here is a poem.

Beginning

So should I write
About the beauty of the flower
Or the devastation
Of the nuclear warhead?
Monsters that can't be
(But I can imagine,)
Or scenes from life
That ring true?

I could copy word for word
The works of the greats,
Or else spend endless time
Deciding what those are.
And would I be any closer
To beginning
Than I was
When beginning?

All great works
Begin with a formula,
Handed down
By expectation.
I will write
As I hope will deliver me
To The Greatest Work
Ever Written in the English Language.

But how did those begin?
I do not know.
I must instead
Follow a well-worn trail
And, braving its passage,
Whatever the terrors,
Either of failure or malaise,
Find the beautiful view.

And pause,
Breathing it in.