The only noise is a departing train
when I wake to daylight at eight o'clock.
The slow white edges darkness back in vain,
groping the averageness of the city block.
I know for certain, yet feel half-unsure,
life will always go on --
what about after I'm dead and gone?
Unfounded conviction beginning to blur,
I step outside to steady rain
Confronting an inarticulate pain:

most go unescorted to the grave.

All day long I try pushing back the thought,
try focusing on my tedious work,
but truest fear -- what was and now is not --
deepens like a glacial cirque.
Certainty's fickleness falls far away
as momentary happiness
from nowhere, more or less,
solidifies into one more day.