Bill Yarrow

The Little Things

It’s the little things that trip us
up: a small hole in a level field,
an innocuous root in a well-trod
path, a disinclined sidewalk…
yet not every stumble is a fall,
even as by a certain age we’ve learned
to outmaneuver the looming yet
are still upended by tiny bagatelles
and that’s why age is a kind of irony
for while we ponder the solutions to
universal health care, world
hunger, and inequalities of wealth,
we are no longer able to safely cross
the street or even tie our shoes.

Astoundingly, Bill Yarrow writes in lines that almost always form sentences.