At the Pivot End of a Life

At the pivot end of a life
(between this world and the next)

all the sleek black horses lined up for
inspection

all the torn and tattered love letters tied in their
appropriate bundles

and the words we’ve left in the air like
washing hanging out to dry

(some come back to us having been
happily stretched and whitened while others

track us down with yeah sad and
unsightly stains)

At the turning point where the
dark woods ahead begin to take

shape showing deeper and deeper shadows and
sharper contrasts

and the miles of galleries behind us with our
finger-paintings hung straight or hopelessly

askew are suddenly
neon lit

And at the poignant points of gratitude after
hurricane or flood earthquake or

Dracula-threat that turns out to be
nothing after all but

incessant mouse-squeaks

and we find ourselves high and dry in His Mercy as
usual with a

strong wind blowing through our clothes
and our breaths more mixed now with the

singsong melodies of the surrounding air
on both purple-shadowy mountain peak or

front porch on a couch with spouse in a
delicious downpour

But the pivot-point anytime anywhere
at any point

and the long or short lines of well-wishers
are everyone or no one as the death woods

open up doorways between trees and show
shadows both luscious and soberingly frightening

one step ahead of us with our
one foot still firm where we are in life

and the other tentatively raised for
forward movement

waiting a moment for the upsurge in our
hearts to show us which way ahead to go

(and ahead the
best place willingly or unwillingly

to go)

And this poem has no way of ending except this
pivot point in expectant tightrope

suspension between
this world with its presumed

finalities and the
next with its personal

Godly apocalypse somewhat
domesticated for use

at the constant and immediate
swivelingly bewildered and

drunkenly reflective

pivot end of a life

8/28/11 28 Ramadan (from Ramadan is Burnished Sunlight)

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