Indefinite Extension

That’s all you want—not infinite,
Indefinite. That’s all you want

When something good is happening,
When some progress is being made,

When there’s a little peace and beauty,
A little quiet and surcease of pain—

A sense of an indefinite extension,
Not another looming impact date.

Each morning for a few days,
You wake up to watch silver clouds

Change shapes over the shining lake.
Cocooned in a borrowed perspective,

You wouldn’t want or expect this to go on
Just like this, endless morning cloudiness,

But, as with anything calmly satisfying,
You’d rather not know the end.