Hanging On
June 9 2008


One day
something overtakes you,
the sudden realization
the future is gone, vanished,
and there is only looking back.
Hope has turned
to disillusion, disappointment,
and all that forward motion
seems pointless.
If you were capable of faith
that might sustain you,
but as it is
you know you’re alone
and the universe magnificently indifferent.

Force of habit makes another day pass
uncounted,
and seasons blur into years.
But you hang on
because ingratitude is the worst sin imaginable,
and because unlikely things do, in fact, happen
— like falling pianos,
like the phone call
you don’t know you missed.