The Continuous Life,: Poems

The Continuous LifeWhat of the neighborhood homes awashIn a silver light, of children crouched in the bushes,Watching the grown-ups for signs of surrender,Signs that the irregular pleasures of movingFrom day to day, of being adrift on the swell of duty,Have run their course? Oh parents, confessTo your little ones the night is a long way offAnd your taste for the mundane grows; tell themYour worship of household chores has barely begun;Describe the beauty of shovels and rakes, brooms and mops;Say there will always be cooking and cleaning to do,That one thing leads to another, which leads to another; Explain that you live between two great darks, the first With an ending, the second without one, that the luckiest Thing is having been born, that you live in a blur Of hours and days, months and years, and believe It has meaning, despite the occasional fear You are slipping away with nothing completed, nothing To prove you existed. Tell the children to come inside, That your search goes on for something you lost–a name, A family album that fell from its own small matter Into another, a piece of the dark that might have been yours, You don’t really know. Say that each of you tries To keep busy, learning to lean down close and hear The careless breathing of earth and feel its available Languor come over you, wave after wave, sending Small tremors of love through your brief, Undeniable selves, into your days, and beyond.