Some live to name the virtues, and some live them
spread across the gaps of time as dust
and those of us who hold ourselves wholly still and listen
feel those dust motes, who knows how
and reproduce them
something more subtle and lingering than DNA
assists us in perception
in the fog bank of the daily, that flash
that deke across directionality as the light itself dies
It dies unto itself, this light, and is born
and that is why the baby’s cry is so damned lingering
and why I don’t hate people who hate children
it’s a gift to see this line carved across humanity
before you take it on, and after the work’s mostly over, you say ah,
that was instructive
I was lucky and I kept my expectations low.
It was enough. Soon I will be an ancestor.
If I am lucky, I will remember her words.
