On the mesa and an equally calm blue dawn,
The wind began to gather strength. Down
Under the great cottonwood in gold canyon,
Tan sand and yellow leaves spun, danced,
And stung. The countdown to inescapable
Calamity now numbered just a few days
If not hours. What life would be after life
Should be afterlife, life didn’t want to know.
Be brave. Over and over consider the climb
Down the uneven basalt steps to the ledge.
Visualize the moment of alignment, balance,
Reluctance. Remember the certain terror
Of body that will resist any abbreviation,
No matter how awful the cost of more time.
Straighten up carefully. Lean away. So said
Mind to awareness attempting to gain
A majority sufficient to overrule body
And obligation. Mind, that Iago of any life,
Any human life, always advising disaster.
Iago serves his author’s smooth, high brow,
The necessity to articulate cruelty in order
To approximate truth. Delirium set in as dust
Curled around life’s slumped shoulders
And clung to every blinking eyelash. Fall
Colors were nearly peaking, this fourth
Consecutive year, fifth autumn in ten,
Body had found itself at this shifting spot
On the map of Never Quite the Same
Canyon, cottonwood, rabbitbrush, creek.
Hardly here at any moment, hardly ever
Here at all. True when Iago first whispered it
Twenty-five years ago, true and true again.
Who would care to admit that the villain
Of understanding, while cruel, was not a liar?
The wind began to gather strength. Down
Under the great cottonwood in gold canyon,
Tan sand and yellow leaves spun, danced,
And stung. The countdown to inescapable
Calamity now numbered just a few days
If not hours. What life would be after life
Should be afterlife, life didn’t want to know.
Be brave. Over and over consider the climb
Down the uneven basalt steps to the ledge.
Visualize the moment of alignment, balance,
Reluctance. Remember the certain terror
Of body that will resist any abbreviation,
No matter how awful the cost of more time.
Straighten up carefully. Lean away. So said
Mind to awareness attempting to gain
A majority sufficient to overrule body
And obligation. Mind, that Iago of any life,
Any human life, always advising disaster.
Iago serves his author’s smooth, high brow,
The necessity to articulate cruelty in order
To approximate truth. Delirium set in as dust
Curled around life’s slumped shoulders
And clung to every blinking eyelash. Fall
Colors were nearly peaking, this fourth
Consecutive year, fifth autumn in ten,
Body had found itself at this shifting spot
On the map of Never Quite the Same
Canyon, cottonwood, rabbitbrush, creek.
Hardly here at any moment, hardly ever
Here at all. True when Iago first whispered it
Twenty-five years ago, true and true again.
Who would care to admit that the villain
Of understanding, while cruel, was not a liar?
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