Mini-festo

When one of my favorite teachers

told the class, “Calling it art

merely means, ‘I like it

a whole bunch,’” you don’t know

how much that freed me.

I liked that class a whole bunch—

so I damn well better call it art. Ditto

that little dance you did just

for me, the sun shyly pinking

into a brief sunset after

an all cloud day, the trail of song

behind the sandwich shop worker

cycling home down our street,

that waft of fresh tarragon on

the first English peas of the season,

sizzling in shallots and butter. Art,

all of it, splitting time into doing,

and the then delicious—you 

were there too?—sense of done.