Slow

A compact poem argues for slowness as a harder and more honest mode of attention than speed, panic, or hindsight.

The speaker treats `slow` as something more than pace. It becomes a discipline against calling events finished too quickly, and the wasp image keeps the whole thing uneasy rather than serene.

A short argument that defends its own title against a 'you' addicted to speed. The charge is 'You would rather be sorry than slow', and the poem widens it into a portrait of hindsight as cowardice - someone content to 'watch it happen / and call it fast' rather than slow things enough that the disaster 'never happens at all'. The wasp keeps the poem from turning serene: slowness here is the patient, stinging kind, attention rather than calm. The opening 'Tinkering; looking around and agast' (Jack's spelling) sets the unease that the closing pays off.