A Pickle

I see it's National Poetry Day again (how soon it comes around...). This year's theme is, er, Freedom. For myself, I'm with Donovan inasmuch as freedom is a word I rarely use*. But, to mark the day, let's hand over to Kay Ryan for a few words on life - this life - what is it, Kay, in a word?

It's a pickle, this life.
Even shut down to a trickle
it carries every kind of particle
that causes strife on a grander scale:
to be miniature is to be swallowed
by a miniature whale. Zeno knew
the law that we know: no matter
how carefully diminished, a race
can only be half finished with success;
then comes the endless halving of the rest --
the ribbon's stalled approach, the helpless
red-faced urgings of the coach. 


* see, if you must, Colours (1965)