Mornings,
I used to pull in
and park by them in the corner space.
As days went by and they were always there,
I came to think of them as friends.
Still fresh and slightly restless with the early hour,
I paused for a second or two each day to watch them,
and their diligence reminded me
to begin with sober intentions
my round of office paperwork.
The ants seemed so innocent, and good.
I noticed no ant was ever around
at midday. It was too hot for them then.
They were out, as before,
at the end of the day,
but I, on my way home, never stopped to watch them.
By then I could not admire diligence.
Meanwhile,
on weekend afternoons,
I drove across town without benefit of freeways.
The sun shining through my windshield
seemed to shrink the skin on my face.
Sweat quickly soaked my hair and clothes
as I crawled through the traffic,
hating my fellow drivers, and bicyclists,
whose presence kept me stranded in the sun.
They would hate me too, I'm sure,
seeing their radiators boil over
and their hot tires explode,
if only in their minds.
Pedestrians swarmed along the sidewalks.
One or two, here and there,
would always set out
along a minor crosswalk
(marked, but with no signal).
I never remembered to watch for them.
I barely missed a few.
Ants I have probably killed by the thousands.
The corpses of the smallest ants
blend right in among the particles of dirt.
I probably drop a few more in my rug each day,
carried in on the soles of my shoes.
I remember, when I was much younger,
rolling ball bearing-sized bits of bread
for some rather large red ants
who lived in a crack in a nearby wall.
Whatever they ordinarily ate,
within minutes they would give up seeking it.
I would watch them filing back to their wall,
each in my mind identical to the last,
each with its little round white burden,
until the bread was gone.
It occurs to me only now
that white bread may not be good for ants.
Horses can't live on sugar,
nor mice on cheese.
Children can't live on candy and Coke.
One ant is never really out of place.
One ant is too small and dry,
too common even to be a nuisance.
A single tiny squirming worm
in a bowlful of fresh strawberries
is enough to make me lose my appetite.
A single tiny spider,
appearing without warning in front of my eyes,
might make me jump.
One ant I wouldn't really care about.
Odd then, that I hardly ever kill
a single worm or spider.
Poor common, predictable ants
more often suffer from my sympathy,
as without malice or any other thought
I slap at a sudden tickle
traveling up my arm or leg.
The haze of morning fades from smoke to ice.
Now is the time I recognize
The expressions of those who prowl the dawn.
Streetlamps glide their glow
on faces obsessed with the single flaw;
they know what I myself have known,
that simple secret so long overlooked by God
and all his drowsy audience.
What can it be, to hold the universe tightly locked
in its path across the fated grain?
I may not tell; I have lost the innocence
to see the right and give the wrong its name.
But once I understood.
I felt the thrill of revelation,
marveling to see what many missed.
Life was long and good,
and death but a continuation.
I grasped at the expert design . . .
The pattern was so clear and I could list
the small but distinct incidents
that removed from my doubting mind
the suspicion of coincidence.
I spoke of it to few,
and lost the inspiration as it left my tongue.
I wished to change my life,
but did not have the time.
The wisdom I had touched was not for me
perhaps by some strange, divine mistake,
I had looked upon the solace of the dying.
The joy I tasted trickled from my hand,
and through a mind now numbed
I seek the remnants of an enlightened moment,
bright still, but brittle as discarded cellophane.
These are the first hours of night,
warm with the fantasies of sleep.
These drowsy lights paint their fragile path
from past to future. The dawn will
cast perspective on the options,
but now I may not walk those dusky tracks.
The challenge of the dark may be fought or seduced,
but the day will break again.
The morning will reveal the wounds,
as in the suicidal spring,
when the winter's casualties lie
chilled and tossed by the gentlest breeze.
I was bred to lose:
not born so, but skilfully taught
to claw my dreams to bleeding death
and raise no hand to ease the pain.
With no concept of graceful ends,
I strangle life or love at their beginnings;
I drag them to their final gasps
but cannot bear to seek another goal.
I am quiet like a morning lit by storms,
soft and smoother than the cold sheets you embrace.
I am sadder, maybe, than the girl
whose hand bends bonelessly round yours
or strokes your hair on the rocks above the beach.
I am here, where the streets are filled without you,
where the morning after only means I slept the night before,
where the time passes marked in minutes
defining the margins of an unwritten page.
But there is no time to dispute the point,
no one to argue, only quotes and promises
against which to measure truth.
For every night will be the same
though the visions may be of a different Paradise,
though I long to read a different passage,
to hear again a different song,
to relive a different segment of my life.
A hand may cling to mine,
and it will not matter whose.
I will cuddle my cats or my children,
write my poems or solve my equations,
lead my parade, regret my dying breath,
and I will wake in the afternoon
to clean my teeth and check the mail
and wonder what I may have missed.