It's been a long time
since the muse or cold reality
has driven me from my bed
to scratch my fear.
A cold wind creeps under the door tonight
and drives the transient
to murmur its name to the transient.
We sit in a house with all that we've collected
trying to prove ourselves permanent
while driving ourselves
deeper into the material illusion.
We hold these things to us
and yet look away
least the pattern becomes too apparent,
and the mirror catch us whole.
For in truth we are erosion in motion,
the resumption of dust,
the gathering of less and less.
I struggled with my pillow tonight
against this clarity.
And with every turn came another vision,
and with every dismissal,
another flash of mortality
like a sword through the curtains.
Very little is under my control here;
save how I ride the failing machinery.
I felt the weight of my gut
and remembered the mirror's vision
of an older man
than I think I am.
Am I not, the young, the sure, the strong?
Am I not those images
that fill my mind's long delusion?
Year after year ... I am changing.
But it comes on so slowly,
I can't see it.
And so, we draw on with grace,
we draw on with sloth,
with gluttony, with materialism,
with work and with projects,
with dreams of fame,
of making an impact,
of impressing others.
And with all of these ... we fail.
But, we press on.
An increasingly narrower place,
the road of clarity,
our deepest animal urges
are doomed
by our gathering awareness
until we have only what remains
or denial.
I want so for it to matter,
but it will not.
Against the bigger scenery,
we are but shadows,
tiny sparks of awareness
from the fires of evolution.
A momentary knowing
against the implacable;
the improbable and transient
standing against that
which cannot register us.
In all these years since Dylan Thomas said,
"Rage, rage against the dying of the light",
I've finally heard him clearly,
but now I doubt his advice.
Beyond here, lies a truth
and an embrace
that only I can encounter.
God grant me the wisdom and courage
to be loving and honest in this place.
gallagher
20 Feb 2007
Monroe
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —