River water kept flowing
Time kept ticking away
Seconds never seen again
Faded from the candle’s flame.

Tell me my purpose
If I was dead before I was born,
And will die when I am dead.

If death is immortal,
Eternal,
Necessary;
Yet life is frail,
Conditional,
Temporary.

Tell me why I am here
In my joy,
My fury,
My agony.

I suffer,
I change.
I am pushed to my limits and beyond
Burdened with freedom and empathy.

Tell me why I feel such emotions
That last
And alas
Here I am
Triumphant.

So
“Give me hell,
Give me heaven,
All your visions of life.”

To become fluent
Is to walk with the hands
The resilience of starch
Dried on the steep ***** of the bowl.
And what may seem clean
Is a trick of the eye
For the residue of rice
Resists the towel and scrub
And clings there,
Known only to the fingers
That would seek this knowledge
And ignore the one thin hair
Afloat in the soup, yesterday,
As we closed our eyes,
As we closed our eyes
And savored the broth.

Once there was a war
No one won a nightmare
From which I am still
Waking up and when I do
It will be forgotten but still
I seek to sleep perchance to
Dream a better dream.


Xmas Morning 1919