As all of human living
Is the brilliant, blinding flash
Of welder's arc,
One meagre life a single spark
In arching grace
Precise in structure
Art in form
And yet we are compelled to parse
And parse
And parse the parsing
To hours, days and years
To successes and to failure
So.
Much.
Failure.

Most will fall
To concrete floor
To glow and fade and die
And some by chance to quenching pail
To sound a raucous last goodbye
But one may find a life anew
Vicarious in having found
The recklessly discarded
Oily rag
                              rc