May 29th, 2011

SUNDAY PRAYER, cclxviii

time & time again

everything burns at a different degree

at its own tell-tale temperature

that acts as a kind of signature

so when you burn inside, what do you do?

do you go for a cigarette, or food, or for booze

do you pour your mind into a computer screen

do you become sad, do you become mean?

do you call up a friend and talk for an hour

do you curl up into a ball and cower

do you cry a river, make a boat of a song

and row the stream of its melody all the night long

in a charade of understanding what on earth could be wrong

why people suffer and burn for reasons unseen

surely anyone would be sad, anyone would be mean

as if trapped in a fleeting but terrible dream

you are a birthday

deep with the dayshine

from dusk to moonbreak

the dust of keepsakes

time & time again, i am i am

das - solon, iowa u.s.a.