The mind is rough, a place
Where time gets lost.
The future wears a sad look in its eye
And I  cannot remember it as well
As it seems I should, for drawing closer
Than the past, so dutifully recalled,
Awake, asleep, ever borrowed and spent--
Overdue bills, coffee-stained reminders
That I'm still alive in someone's judgement,
Represented in a row of crosses.

Erase it all, imagine everything
Untold,
No story spoken, nothing
Overheard,
An unstrung voice--rose petals Dropped
At dawn,
Beneath what tree olives or green
Apples
Issac's lot. The question having not been
Answered. Music, though essential, tells us
Nothing.

Each new crowning, where Peter upside down
Betrayed no longer any human god
Alone somehow connected  until now
The empty skull accepts a tuning held
Across so many faces whose sorrow,
Unbelievable as truth so often
Takes on its characteristic pallor,
Insisting we are none of us forever.