A handful of stints and setbacks.
Before you know it your world is
reduced to capsules, frustration.
Kingdoms given over for others
to reign; the monarch has taken
his first exit. Still, one comes on
every odd day to grant him a few
more. For a time it was one big
procedure after another. Turns
out he lives thanks to five dollar
plastic tubing. Still, it is living.
A walk forward into resignation
and fresh faith. Independence
lost in a parked car; old bonds
recast in each new “love you.”
A fair trade, perhaps, in a new
economy of hasty demise. Is the
slight gurgle in the throat more
fluid or more feeling? It is not
clear. Somehow the end brings
immunity from old hesitations.
This much is clear: There is the
muscle’s failure. There is a good
Lord. And there is each new day.
He could fill them with a pouting
regret, but he seems to move on
ahead. The days are for making a
few last moves, new cane in hand.
His stoop has the clearest sermon:
Welcome the grace of letting them
do for you the things that always
signaled you were still in the game.
Do what you can do, control what
you can control. As for the rest, the
old haunts, the comforting rituals,
the efforts of another, younger era,
let them go,
in peace.
