How to do nothing
A poem by Joanne Maybury

How to do nothing

First: gather your courage
for you are about to cast off,
to step off the path, to prepare to jump.
The voices will rise up—
you’re wasting time, you’re lazy,
you’re not earning your keep—

and you must choose to defy.

Second: empty your hands.
Put down your phone,
your pen, your keys.
Lay everything aside
and if you suddenly feel
a loss, a premonition of death,
return to gather your courage.

Third: breathe.
This work you do all day, all night,
without thought or gratitude.
Breathe. Pull long and fill yourself
from head to toe and
feel the life course through you.
Breathe.

Fourth: lift your face to the sun,
turn into the wind, watch the moon rise,
feel your weight through your bones,
gaze into the distance
or at the ground caressing your feet.

Do this, and more, this nothing.
Do this in sixty seconds or minutes.
Do this as often as you dare
until it becomes everything.
Until you return to yourself.

About the Author:

Joanne Maybury is rediscovering her voice, finding her poetry and gathering her courage. She has lived in Uganda and Sudan, raised her children with her husband, and journeyed with the chronically and terminally sick. She now lives in the borderlands of Scotland where, amongst other things, she is learning to be a hopeful gardener. 

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