And Then What’s Left Is All That’s left

As if there were an inch of this ranch
That had belonged to another world,
Once or twice upon a time, that had

Had the foresight to go underground
When underground had been doable,
That had not waited until this late

To imagine a bridge between dreams
Of escape and the means to escape—
A thought of every escapist,

Retrospective wish of refugees
Around the globe for who knows how long—
That there used to be a time when this

Was possible or, at any rate,
More possible than it has become.
Best wishes for fletching that arrow.

The last demographic continues
To grow until a day comes it can’t—
That’s all extinction is, anyway,

The day that the last demographic,
The portion of a population
That is owned by death, runs out of fuel.

Perspective Can Stretch Thin

The life you lived in
Was so much larger
Than you, was a world

Maybe much smaller
Than most, still vaster
Than what you could know,

Never mind become.
That largeness of life,
The enormity

Of ordinary
Human existence.
Human existence

Being so minor. . .
Perspective’s no use
If the scales collapse,

Can’t extend across
The range of measures—
If there’s no stretching

The mind enough steps
At a time to bridge
Without breaking down.

Reversible Two-Way Door

The man you’re talking to being
Ripped about by a year of blows,
A year not to be repeated,

Regales you, and all you can think
Of is how dead he ought to be,
How every life’s late-stage sequence

Is largely ridiculous, being
A kind of rehearsal for those
Who can’t appreciate the ruse

Of practicing to be what you’ve become,
Which amounts to being done and gone.
Plunge back in tomorrow, plain dead you.

Tomorrow should be made aware of this,
That death arrives double, both hit and miss.

Go Already

Well, let’s get on with it, one part of you
Mutters as the rest of the group concludes

That it would be wiser to get the hell
Out of hell before it revealed itself.

All the sorts of things the variously
Dying mind gets up to finally,

Bits at a time—there’s so much to stay for,
And yet the savoring prolongs the stay

And stalls the completion of the best way
To get through it all—cheerfully, freely,

Without procrastination. When you look
Ahead cheerfully—let’s go!—the going

Is always better than the let’s-just-not
That then tries to pretend you did, like ghosts.

The act of trying to go’s never worse
Than the act of pretending you done went.