At Last
April 21 2009


You feel like an impostor,
dancing faster and faster
to stay on top,
keep your head above water.
Or risk looking down;
surface tension
all that keeps you from drowning.

You are a self-proclaimed agnostic,
your theology modest
your conviction soft.
But actually, you proclaim nothing at all,
preferring to get along
by default.
Words like “evil”, and “wicked”
seem anachronistic,
too Old Testament
for how we now live.
Mild condemnation’s OK,
but nothing any stricter.
He couldn’t choose his parents, after all;
so whose fault is it, really?

It’s mostly muddling through
making do,
too pre-occupied, and harassed
for the longer view.
Which all feels too much
like nailing jelly to walls,
trimming the lawn
with scissors.
Or counting grains of sand
as the pit collapses around you.



So when the planet slammed to a stop,
the sun froze
at the top of its orbit.
When buildings toppled
and we were catapulted-off
over the edge,
like tiny specks
on sudden helpless tangents,
you had no way
to make any sense of it.

But what a relief
to have space to think,
at last.
When time took time-out,
when you let yourself go,
when fate
was all you had faith in.

Such exquisite decadence,
surrender.