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Bored
by Margaret Atwood

All those times I was bored
out of my mind. Holding
the log while he sawed it. Holding
the string while he measured,
boards, distances between things,
or pounded stakes into the ground
for rows and rows of lettuces and
beets, which I then (bored) weeded.
Or sat in the back of the car, or
sat still in boats, sat, sat, while at
the prow, stern, wheel he drove,
steered, paddled. It wasn't even
boredom, it was looking, looking
hard and up close at the small
details. Myopia. The worn gunwales,
the intricate twill of the seat cover.
The acid crumbs of loam,
the granular pink rock,
its igneous veins, the sea-fans
of dry moss, the blackish and
then the graying bristles on the back
of his neck. Sometimes he would
whistle, sometimes I would. The
boring rhythm of doing things over
and over, carrying the wood, drying
the dishes. Such minutiae. It's what
the animals spend most of their
time at, ferrying the sand, grain
by grain, from their tunnels, shuffling
the leaves in their burrows. He
pointed such things out, and I would
look at the whorled texture of his
square finger, earth under the nail.
Why do I remember it as sunnier
all the time then, although it more
often rained, and more birdsong?
I could hardly wait to get the hell out
of there to anywhere else.
Perhaps though boredom is happier.
It is for dogs or groundhogs. Now
I wouldn't be bored. Now
I would know too much.
Now I would know.

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