No Wow Left in Now

Not when paying attention,
Not when you’re doing it right,
Which means, so much it’s enough,

Which means, you don’t want more wow.
These aren’t the flowers you saw
Three, eight, fourteen years ago,

And you aren’t who you were, but
Neither is now. In those days,
When you first saw wildflowers

Weedy in wayside gravel
Under a less-weathered sign,
Now was all the rage. Now ruled.

Bestselling books. TV shows.
Celebrity endorsements.
Now, all-powerful and cool.

Then it faded. Salvation
Always does, always needing
New prophets, tent revivals.

But here you are, similar
In some ways to who you were,
And the trailhead’s similar,

The faded sign, the gravel,
The wildflowers in the gravel,
In similar summer sun.

Even now is similar,
And you like it better, now
It seems more and more like then.