She whirls in the darkness

in a dance of heart-stopping

grace,

her every lithesome move

the definition

of movement itself.

Her leaps and pirouettes

would stun the Kirov's

stars, but none will

ever sit in jealous awe

as she performs.

Her theatre is closed to all

and she would sooner

burn it down

than let a coarse and barbarous world

be blessed by her tender power.

You can set it down now.

You've carried it one hell of
a long time,
and I wouldn't be surprised
if it's made a permanent dent in your
shoulder by now.
I will admit, however,
that that old piece of wood
you've lugged around
for so many years
has really become part of your
identity, although maybe not
in the way you imagine when
you're alone and adding up
the outrages
that have been committed
against you that day.
You've been showing it off
for so long that even the people
who used to wonder
when you were finally going to reach
Golgotha have stopped asking
about it.
So you might as well dump it
in some place where it'll
be handy for the garbage men to pick up.
We got the message a long time ago.
Now you're just becoming a bore.

The days melt away

and so do I.
There will be no trace of me
some day
except for the records
kept in electrons
and those will die out
too,
forgotten in some
indecipherable corner.
Immortality
is a mug's game.
But ever since Gilgamesh
the suckers have been
laying down
the coin.

You'll miss them someday,

the gentle moment of holding that little girl
in your arms,
that moment of standing in the new light
of a forgiving morning,
the surge of strength you have to lift
those heavy branches,
or that tidal wave of ecstasy
in a shaded place
with the one whose love
keeps you whole.
They will pass through your fingers
faster than the time between vivid dawn
and looming darkness, never to
return to your hand again.
Never let the mundane world
sell you the lie
that they are too commonplace
to be worthy of your
surrender.

I used to say

that I wanted to see its true face,
no matter how terrible,
and drink its essence,
no matter how bitter.
But I never actually wanted
to do that.
Rather, from a safe distance,
one where I could get
something to eat
whenever I felt like it
and curl up with the cats,
I wanted to
read about
how other people had
had to march through Sheol.
I know that on one level
that makes me merely
a voyeur of the suffering
of others.
But I didn't will their agony
and I don't revel in the accounts
of the horrors that raped them.
And my going through them
wouldn't undo any of it
on their behalf.
I wanted to know
because I felt
someone should remember
what had happened to them,
however loathsomely
comfortable that someone was.

Every joy you have ever felt

in watching a little kid's giddy delight,
smelling a new morning's ineffable promise,
spooning with a special partner in private,
unspoken bliss,
having an omelette so good it deserves an award,
feeling your soul opening up like a crocus
on the first warm day of spring,
or embracing a friend you once thought
would never be in your sight again
but who is now vibrantly real in your arms,
is not an escape,
an aside,
an aberration in the scheme of an
indifferent universe,
or a denial of reality.
Each of those moments is a victory,
complete and total in itself,
over gray, exhausted despair,
an affirmation that the term real
isn't just reserved for tragedy,
and a reminder that life
is more than the sum
of its tears.

It was so much easier

when the roof was just a few miles high
and the magical constellations
glittered just beyond the top of the ziggurat,
rotating around us in a flattering,
glorious procession.
It was all so wonderfully compact
and understandable,
and we counted for so much
in the eyes of the wide-eyed
gods that stood in silent
judgment in the temples.
The dazzling nightly show
had been created with
only one audience in mind,
and those who watched it
and saw in it the realm
of the perfect,
knew that the only futures
it would ever predict
would be theirs,
and theirs alone.