The Great Reward

Survival’s a quest

With no grail, clichéd

As an amulet

Inscribed solemnly,

Archly, The journey

Is the reward. Pal,

That’s another way

Of telling you not

To expect a lot.

You’ll have your mornings

Dead set on wringing

Savor from all hours,

And you’ll have your days

When you realize

You can’t remember

How you spent your hours.

It doesn’t matter.

The journey isn’t

The reward. Moments

You didn’t create

By meditation

Or achievement that

Echo each other

Such that you recall

The feeling of them

As being content

With their contentment

Are the reward. You

Weren’t surviving them,

You were just being

And you knew it, and

And knowing just then

You knew was enough.

Without Which the Future Would Be Pure Myth

Enormous cloud, nimbus around
That newborn infant’s fontanelle,
Nearly innumerable

Ways in which the baby could end
At any moment in the next
One hundred spins around the sun—

A nebula of possible
Extinctions which will whittle
Down to only one. Miracle,

If miracle means anything,
That from the swarm of ways to die
Each child will receive only one

While each guaranteed to get one,
The anchor of all futures fixed
To the floor of all existence.

Meanwhile, often up to the last,
The cradle of the heartbeat bobs
As if adrift to destiny

As any Moses or Sargon
Floating like a duck in the reeds,
But not, not adrift, well-anchored

To that guarantee, don’t know where
And don’t know when, but it’s down there,
Singular, miracle, future.